4 the Greater Good
by mongoose-bite
Summary: Summer arrives and life goes on for the four survivors in Allegheny County. But is this really how it was meant to be? Collaboration with LurkingGrue. Rated for language. Now AU.
1. Chapter 1

Left 4 Dead is the property of Valve. No profit is being made off this fiction, and the authors claim no ownership of the setting or characters. Cross-posted to the hero_closet community on livejournal. Go join, if that's your bag.

* * *

Without having to set an alarm, Zoey still woke up relatively early in the morning. Not early enough to catch her mother or father bustling out the door, of course. Even though she was awake, Zoey stayed in bed, staring at her room. It was pretty clean for her. Her laundry was picked up and in the basket, her various gadgets and movies all put away in their proper spots. Her book-bag, still heavy with books, sat next to her computer. She'd remember to take them out eventually. For some reason, the weight of them was reassuring.

She exhaled a minute sigh and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, wriggling her toes on the plush carpet. Zoey swept her feet over the surface a few times and sighed again. For some reason she'd felt a bit... disconnected since school had let out. Like she'd lost her sense of purpose. School had been grueling, and she hadn't even declared her major yet, and she'd been looking forward to spending the whole summer doing nothing at all. And now that she had nothing to do, she felt like everything was just _wrong_.

Breakfast would be her first mission, she supposed, and she forced herself up and out of bed. Her clock read nine a.m. so she decided she'd be out of the house before noon. The cleaning people came then and it was awkward being home doing nothing while they busted their asses. It was their job and they got paid, but still. Weird.

Normally she just had cereal or pop-tarts, but she needed something to put effort into. She made herself some scrambled eggs, turning on the news while she ate them, certain there were more interesting shows on. They had digital cable, but all she ever felt like watching anymore was the news. Even the news felt boring.

Zoey had to get out of her funk. It was nearly ten thirty by the time she was ready to go out and she picked up what she had formerly considered her life line. Lately, it only felt like a tether. She paged through her friends, wondering if they were even awake yet. She tried Amanda, the more responsible of her two closest friends.

"Hey!" Amanda said when she answered the phone. The sunshine in her voice made Zoey smile a little.

"Mornin'," Zoey said, "What's shakin'?"

"We are _so _clubbing tonight," Amanda determined, "Remember that party last night? The one you bailed on at like _eight?_"

"Yeah," Zoey said, smirking at her tone.

"Well I met these really cute guys," she said, "And they're gonna meet us tonight."

"Aw, _Amanda_," Zoey protested, "Jeez, why do you do that? I hate blind dates!"

"It's not a date, it's just... listen, they're really cute Zoey," Amanda insisted, "Besides, what else are we going to do? Josh's party isn't for a few days yet."

"Nnngh," Zoey growled.

"Well what do you want to do then?" Amanda asked her, her voice exasperated.

"I was looking around on the 'net and there is this paintball place not far from-"

"Oh my _god_, Zoey, I am not getting balls of paint shot at me!" she said, almost offended that Zoey had suggested such a thing, "You don't want to do that Zoey. Paintball is for rednecks, anyway."

Zoey sighed wearily and shook her head even though Amanda couldn't see her. She wasn't even sure why she'd tried that one. She'd be better off trying to drag one of the guys, but even they would be reluctant. They preferred Halo. Fake guns. Paintball guns were fake as well, but not quite fake enough. Why was she so frustrated by this? Normally she'd agree wholeheartedly. She was a nerd and nerds didn't play outdoor sports.

"All right, we'll go to the club," she said, smirking when Amanda cheered, "But these guys better not be the usual slack jawed idiots."

"One of them likes video games," Amanda said, obviously trying to be enticing without ruling out the slack jawed idiot idea.

"I already said I'd go," Zoey said, "You want to do anything for lunch?"

Amanda did, in fact, and Zoey agreed to meet her there. When she hung up, she didn't know what to make of her exasperation and impatience. Some of her friends were kind of bubbleheads sometimes, sure, but they had always been fun to hang out with. Zoey was their token weirdo friend, given, but lately she found herself wishing they could do things that didn't involve boys or clubbing or video games. Was this what it was like being a grown up? God, next thing she knew she'd be telling people to get off the lawn. She'd have some damned fun today, and that was _that_.

"Snap out of it, Zoey," she told herself, slapping her cheeks and shaking herself out. It was summer break, damn it. Time to have _fun_.

* * *

The alarm went off. Louis reached out and smacked it into silence before the first tone had finished. It was a mind game; with the alarm silenced he had to force himself out of bed before he went back to sleep and go through the motions of his morning routine. He showered and then put on clothes identical to the ones he wore yesterday, kitchen for a glass of water (apparently it was healthy), cereal in front of a morning show that had the cheer and sweetness of powdered sugar and made no sense to his sleep-addled mind. Watch, wallet, keys; Rachel. He was seven floors away when he remembered he hadn't said goodbye. Maybe she was still asleep. He didn't have time to rectify his oversight.

Still mostly on autopilot he joined the thousands of commuters on the clogged arterial roads leading into the city center. At zombie-shuffle speed through a fog of car exhaust, he edged into the city, and managed to find a free spot at his usual car park. The commute had woken him up; the stop-start rhythm of traffic had reached into some primal part of his brain and turned on the switch labeled 'you are going to be late'. Him and everyone else.

He took the stairs down from the car-park. Elevators just took too long; he needed fuel before he could face the office. His watch declined to tick ominously but he felt himself lose seconds nevertheless as he risked life and limb, his hurried footsteps echoing along the stairwell. The elevator doors where shut when he reached ground floor; he told himself his flight down the stairs had beaten it. He wasn't even puffed; the gym was paying off, although it hadn't made him any less late for work.

The pedestrian stream had averaged itself out to a speed too fast for the old ladies shuffling behind their bags and too slow for Louis and his brethren hovering impatiently at traffic lights, answering their phones and burning caffeine. Louis had his sights set on the little cafe on the corner, its steam and bustle dwarfed by the towering office block it nourished.

Surrounded by the smell of coffee and the newly-washed, Louis came to his first dead stop of the day in, what else, a queue, at the same spot he usually started his day. Louis jittered in place a little and checked his watch, letting out an irate sigh. He had a briefcase in one hand, his suit jacket draped over his arm, and he was going to be late if this barista didn't haul his fat ass around a little faster and make him some damn cappuccinos.

Once they were finally done and paid for, he walked as quickly as he could with the full tray without spilling it, doing rather well considering. He dodged around people and managed to dart in front of a cab (he honked and Louis didn't even bother flicking him off - hands full anyway), rushing into his office building and making a dash for the elevators. Of course, the door closed just as he got to them and he swore, poking the call button a few times.

His cellphone rang and after a sensational balancing act, he managed to answer it without checking the caller id. He winced when he answered. Rachel.

"Yeah, baby, I won't be late tonight," Louis assured her, "I know I didn't say goodbye this morning. I'm sorry. Listen, I'm still runnin' kinda late so I gotta... yeah... yeah. Love you, too. Bye."

He flipped his cellphone shut and squeezed into the elevator, glaring at some idiot mail-boy who jostled him. It wasn't going to be a very good day, and it was just like every other day.

* * *

There was a knock at the door. Bill sat up, alert and ready. It was past nine. He scowled at his own laziness and swung himself out of bed, wincing as something clicked in his back. There was another knock.

"Goddamn it, hold your fire, I'm coming." He pulled on his dressing gown, walking through a sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean apartment and muttering to himself as he went to answer the door. They were going to think he was some useless old man, still in his pyjamas at nine in the morning, he berated himself.

He opened the door, "Yes?"

"Hiii~ I'm Bethany from the Christian Outreach Center and I-"

"Get the hell out of my doorway! If Jesus is so goddamn keen on me he can ask me out himself!" He slammed the door in her face, feeling a bit better. He took a deep breath and angrily shrugged off his dressing gown.

He walked past the mirror in the hall and noticed a note jammed in the gap between the glass and frame. Aw hell, was that today? He picked up the pace back to his bedroom to get changed. Fucking useless Kid Doctor and his fucking useless tests.

"Should tell him to piss off until they find a cure for old," he muttered, picking up his lighter from beside the bed.

The Mercy hospital. Bill's mood grew blacker. He slouched outside the specimen collection office and finished his cigarette, ignoring the looks he was getting from the other patients and hospital staff. He knew what they were thinking; that whatever he was dying of it was his fault in the first place for keeping some of the bad habits he'd picked up while risking his life for them. Well he wasn't dying by a long shot, and if it kept 'em at an arm's length so much the better.

Goddamn sick people. He didn't belong here.

Chin up, soldier. He presented himself to the front desk and a girl with a polite smile took his details and made him fill out a form, and then told him to wait. As far as Bill was concerned, it was the anteroom to hell. There were silent televisions showing sports or talk shows, and piles of gossip magazines on the low tables between the rows of seats. Bill watched the other inmates for a while, trying to guess what was wrong with them, and he knew they were probably looking at him and wondering the same thing. Their guesses were probably just as helpful as Kid Doctor's.

His name was called, and he went in to see the vampires.

He seemed to get a new attendant every time, and they all treated him like a kid going for his first visit to the dentist. "Just jab it in, or I'll do it myself," he snapped, "you don't think I've had worse?" And they were always agreeable and distant and it pissed him off more. They probably thought he was scared of needles and blustering to cover for it.

The good part was that he'd had it done often enough, and it meant that his ordeal was nearly over. Until next time. Christ, one depressing thing at a time, please. They stuck a needle in his arm and patched him up, and he found himself outside the hospital again, blinking in the sunlight. He lit up again but didn't wait around to smoke it, stalking away with the smoke coiling over his shoulder.

Sick people were superfluous. Useless. Old and sick were even worse. But he wasn't sick, damn it all.

* * *

There was a screech of tyres followed by horns and shouting. Francis opened one eye to see sunlight pouring in from between the slats in his blinds. The clock on the bedside table told him that it was almost eleven. He shook himself awake and looked around, frowning and blinking and generally feeling like he'd been backed over by a truck.

"Fucking hell," he muttered. "I hate mornings."

In the street, the argument continued before engines revved and the combatants sped away. Francis kicked away empty beer cans and staggered into his tiny bathroom. He wandered around the cheap brick box he called a home before unearthing some pizza from the back of his fridge. It was better than nothing.

His apartment was a mess. There was empty junk food containers and beer cans on almost every flat surface, and he hadn't washed a dish in over two weeks. Not that the landlord cared as long as he kept paying cash.

His ability to continue this was in some doubt. He put the pizza box down on top of the television before picking up his phone and punching in a number.

"It's Francis. Yeah, can I speak to- thanks."

He leaned against the wall and toed at a hole in his carpet while he waited.

"Hey, man. Yeah, long time no see."

He paused, listening. He frowned but kept his tone a genial growl.

"I know, I know. Wonderin' if I could pick it back up. Couple nights a week?"

"Fucking hell, man. You know I wouldn't. Yeah."

He ran his hand over his head and scowled.

"It's your call, man. You can get back to me when they get their asses handed to 'em."

He hung up. Thanks for sweet fuck all. He retrieved his pizza and wolfed it down; it looked like it was going to be breakfast and lunch. He tossed the empty pizza box on the pile near the door and grabbed his keys before slamming the door behind him.

He went downstairs to the communal garage that his neighbours tended to use to store junk, rather than cars. He stepped around a pile of boxes and some electrical equipment of dubious origin. His eyes lit up, and he grinned.

"Hello baby," he said affectionately, "least _you're_ still here_._" Jobs came and went, and currently there was a lot of went, but his beloved bike was always there for him.

He wheeled the chopper out onto the driveway and went back inside to fetch his tools. With the morning sun beating down on his head, and the sound of rap music echoing mindlessly from a nearby apartment, he started taking his bike to bits. Maybe he'd think of someone else to call, or someone would call him, but in the meantime he could lose himself in the grease and chrome.

* * *

The music in the club thumped in her eardrums and she did her best not to grimace, to have _fun _instead. They weren't really supposed to be in here, but it was kind of underground, and so long as they didn't actually try and buy any drinks, they wouldn't get kicked out. She felt completely exposed out on the dance floor. The lighting was sporadic, strobe-like, and it was too easy to imagine the bouncing, dancing bodies around her as... as something _else_. She didn't know at what point she'd started to hate crowds. All she wanted to do right now was shrink into a corner and keep an eye on everything. Maybe even go outside, away from the racket.

Abruptly a hand grabbed her wrist and she stiffened, but it was only Amanda, smiling and mouthing '_Follow me_'. Zoey allowed herself to be led through the crowd (the crush of bodies, the breath of hundreds of people, her skin was crawling off) and sat down at a table they'd claimed. Zoey drank from a nine dollar bottle of water gratefully, though she wasn't sweating from exertion. It looked normal alongside everyone else, so she'd take it.

Amanda flipped her phone open, texting, while Zoey tugged at her skirt and adjusted her knee-high boots. This was such an impractical outfit, but it was her favorite. It _had_ been. For clubbing. When clubbing had still been pretty fun. Ugh, she was out of it tonight.

"Ohh, they're here," the redhead said, perking up and propping up on her tip-toes and squinting out into the crowd.

"What do they look like?" Zoey wondered, raising her eyebrows and swiping an arm over her forehead.

"A blonde and a one has really dark hair," Amanda said, "The blonde has a red shirt on."

Zoey peered out into the crowd, scanning it, and pointed, "Is that them?"

It took Amanda a moment but she nodded, laughing, "Shit, you're good Zoey. Hey! Over here!"

Amanda waved wildly and finally got the boys attention, and Zoey resisted the urge to groan. They both looked like absolute _douchelords_, in her opinion. Hair done up to look like it _hadn't_ been done up, tight shirts, tight jeans, and one of them had even popped his collar up. Both of them waded through the crowd, and Amanda happened to glance at Zoey, whacking her friend on the shoulder.

"Oh my god, you haven't even _talked_ to them yet," she said, disapproving, "What is your deal anymore, Zoey?"

"They look boring," she insisted, talking at normal volume. They wouldn't be able to hear a damn thing until they were right up on them, anyway.

"Hey," the blonde said when he managed to squeeze over to their table. The dark haired one put up a hand and waved as well, and Zoey forced herself to wave back.

"Hey, Brendan!" Amanda said, scooching forward to hug him. Obviously she had some designs on him, and Zoey hid a smirk by drinking, "Brendan, Mark, this is Zoey."

"Hey Zoey," Mark said, looking her over.

Zoey offered him a silent 'cheers' with her bottled water and leaned on their table, zoning out as Amanda made small talk. She'd make an effort tonight. Maybe some good brainless fun would break her out of her funk.

Later, as Zoey drove them home, Amanda was stewing and Zoey felt like a jerk. She'd really, really tried, but things... hadn't gone well.

"I can't believe you told Mark to _grow some pubes_ before he calls you," she seethed after a very long silence, "What's your _problem!?_ He was cute!"

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, hunching her shoulders and wincing as she watched the road, "I just... come on, Amanda, I could kick his ass. I don't like dating guys I can kick the ass of."

"Well you_ used_ too," Amanda pouted.

Zoey exhaled a world weary sigh. That was true, wasn't it? What had changed?


	2. Chapter 2

Zoey had done well last semester. She'd earned the summer break, all of her friends were staying in the state pretty much all summer, and her parents had loosened the reigns a little. Things weren't too bad, really, but some things still didn't feel _right_. She felt like she was missing pieces. How could she, though? She was all accounted for.

She squinted in the dim light of the arcade. Though she did have a few nerd friends to choose from, she'd wanted to do this alone. Zoey paused a moment and turned off her cellphone. Somewhere in her room, her iPod was gathering dust. She didn't like tuning out outside noises anymore.

Hunting through the machines, she found one that would suit her purposes and put in some quarters. Though she noted that there were some pimply, slouching nerds watching her, she didn't care. She knew why they were watching, and hey, maybe she'd prove them right. What would a girl like her know about shooting guns?

She lifted the cheap plastic gun attached to the machine by a cord and immediately frowned at the weight of it, adjusting her hands accordingly. No good. Not that she was expert. Because she'd never touched a gun in her life.

Zoey got the high score, beating the previous high score by hundreds of thousands, all in one credit. The lurking nerds were silent and she grimly set the gun down, moving on to the next shooting game. This one was a sniper game. The false rifle was too light, and every time she fired at a terrorist, she expected it to kick. It didn't.

High score.

She'd made her way through nearly every game, but she had to stop when she got to some zombie shoot em' up, pressing her hands to her eyes and trying not to panic. There was_ no way_ she could play this game. It was too... _what?_

"Hey, uh," one of the nerds approached her, jumping when she snapped around, "That one's two player if you wanna do co-op."

"Fuck you," Zoey said acidly. He flinched, something hard in her eyes keeping him from retorting, and quickly retreated to his friend. She turned back to the game and watched the demo flash by, all bright lights, gaudy music and comically slow zombies.

The quarters clinked as she fed them in and she picked up the plastic pistol, hating how it felt so clunky and wrong. As she worked her way through the levels her eyes started to sting, and her hands quaked slightly, but she didn't falter. Dammit, she hadn't imagined it. It had been _real_. _They_ had been real.

By the time she'd finished the game she was breathing harshly, and she practically slammed the fake pistol back into the cradle before storming out, hands jammed deep into her pockets, eyes fixed down at her sneakers. Fuck pretending, then. She was going to find them. Somehow. They'd all been in the same state at least, right? The same _county_, even. Maybe she was going insane, but she'd go even crazier if she didn't find out one way or another.

Girded with a new resolve, she retreated to her room, closing the door behind her even though she was home alone. A residual habit from living in a dorm. Or for wanting a warning before anyone (any_thing_) tried to get inside. She settled into her computer chair and took a steadying breath. One of them would be the easier to find than the others.

Zoey pulled up the online yellow pages and started to scroll through the list of every bar in Allegheny County.

Zoey hadn't brought anyone with her this time, and even though her instincts screamed at her that doing anything alone was a stupid, stupid idea, she ignored it. She could handle herself. She had mace, and she'd told Amanda where she'd be, and if things didn't pan out, she was going to call her. The bar looked crowded, which was a good sign. So far the places she'd visited were relatively deserted and she hadn't turned up a damn thing. As much as she'd been tempted to, she didn't relish 'asking for Francis' because what if she got the wrong guy? It wasn't the most common name, but the last thing she needed was to be directed to some crack dealer or... or something.

She was forced to park outside of the street lamps, grimacing at how shiny and new her Prius looked next to all the run down cars. Maybe she shouldn't have asked for such a trendy goddamn car for her eighteenth. Oh well, nothing for it, right? This was one of the last places she had left to check before she gave up and started trying phone books.

Getting out of the car, she paused a moment and opened the back seat, grabbing out her book-bag and her hoodie. The book-bag might be a handhold, but she wasn't much of a purse person and mace didn't really fit in pockets. Besides, she could really wallop someone with her science books. Zoey pulled the hoodie on despite the muggy summer air, shouldered her book-bag, and headed into the bar. She was hit immediately with the smell of stale beer, cigarettes and body odor, but she wasn't phased by it at this point. Some people closer to the door did double takes. Even in her hoodie she looked completely out of place in her designer jeans and trendy sneakers, her book-bag festooned in nerdy stickers and patches.

Zoey ignored the looks and made a face. It was packed in here, and she had to stand on her tip-toes to even see over anyone.

"Hey, little lady," someone said behind her, making her turn, "You take a wrong turn at Albuquerque?"

"Nope," she said curtly, not liking how his buddies were sizing her up. Zoey started to edge towards the bar, figuring she'd have better luck there.

Though most would consider her size a great disadvantage in the sort of situation she was in, Zoey knew how to twist it to work for her. She could dodge and weave through the crowd more easily, even with her book-bag slung over her shoulder, and she quickly put distance between her and the very unpleasant men that she'd met at the door. Nobody was going to actually start something with her right? It had to be obvious she wasn't a threat. Maybe this had been a bad idea. If she got into some kind of trouble her parents were going to kill her, because she had absolutely _no_ explanation for what she was doing at this end of town in a place like this. She was supposed to be back at home. It was pizza night, the one night a week that both her parents were off work long enough to be home to spend time with her.

She pushed all of that to the back of her mind and popped up on a bar stool, ignoring the increasingly hostile (and crude) looks she was getting. Once she was up, she stood on the rim of it, figuring this was the best way to get a full view of the place. The person she was looking for would be easily visible from such a high angle.

"Excuse me, miss," someone growled behind her, "Can I see some ID?"

Zoey ignored him, glancing over at the pool area, and she was positive her heart skipped a few beats. There... there he was. That was_ him_. It wasn't someone who kind of looked like him, or might've been him, but it _was_ him. He leaned against the wall, waiting for his opponent to make his shot, drinking beer. His cue was leaning against the wall next to him. He belonged here, he was like anyone else in the crowd, middle-aged, tattooed, surly and probably without much to go home to. From this crowd, no one would have picked him out.

His opponent missed; the ball bouncing softly off the edge of the table just half an inch away from the pocket. He snorted derisively, and set his drink down to make his shot. He made a show of walking around thinking, ignoring the noise around him as he lined up his shot.

He leaned across the table and took his shot. Ah, crap. His expression suggested he hadn't quite meant to do that.

"_Francis_," she whispered, barely able to breathe, feeling light headed. She wasn't insane.

"Hey," the bartender snarled, grabbing her arm to get her attention, "ID or get out, kid!"

She didn't notice the shocked look on his face when she easily broke his grip, and in the middle of the crowded, rough bar, she shouted, "Francis!!"

Zoey didn't give him time to notice her and pushed through the bikers and the drug dealers and the trailer trash, heart racing, mind spinning in circles. He was here, he was_ here_, she'd found him and he was _real _and she hadn't made it all up! Obviously startled by the sudden outburst, some of the more stunned people in front of her parted, more interested in what the hell she was on about than messing with her.

The second she broke through the crowd she flung herself at the biker, wrapping her arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest. Her fingers dug into the leather of his vest, making the material creak in protest at the abuse. He was here and she was touching him and she wasn't going to let go just in case he vanished and oh god she wasn't _insane_.

"Oh my god," she gasped, her voice hitched with emotion, "Oh my god, I thought I was going crazy, but you're here! You're _real!_"

If he was here that meant the others had to be, safe and sound, and she thought she might burst from being so overjoyed. She looked up after a few minutes of raving about how he was alive and she was so glad she'd found him, cheeks stained with tears, and favored him with the biggest shit-eating grin she could muster. It was _Francis_.


	3. Chapter 3

Francis scowled at his own poor performance and prowled around the table looking for a way to regain the advantage. He heard his name called over the dull roar of the bar. And that voice, it was so familiar. He looked around, but couldn't see anyone obviously trying to get his attention. No wonder he was playing like crap.

He saw his opponent was ignoring the table and looking behind him at the crowd. Francis turned just in time to get attacked. A girl, having apparently materialised from thin air, wrapped herself around him, and hugged him hard enough to obstruct his breathing, a stream of delighted emotion pouring from her mouth. And he knew her; she was wearing those clothes and that voice, he'd heard it shout at him a hundred times.

This didn't make any sense. The girl in his dream was in this bar. Maybe this was another dream, and if it was it was a good one. He was going to treasure the expressions of sheer envy he was receiving for a long time. He rested a hand on her back, although it told him nothing more than what he already knew that she was as solid and real as he was. He couldn't keep the sheer disbelief out of his voice.

"Zoey?" Those were the eyes he remembered. This just got very, extremely, weird. He looked around and decided this was definitely not the place to start interrogating her.

"I forfeit," he said over his shoulder, and practically dragged her outside. She stumbled after him, still apparently over the moon.

"Francis," she said, voice still a bit thick from crying. She wiped at her nose awkwardly. They were happy tears, though, Francis realised. "I'm so glad you're real, you have _no_ idea. I thought I was losing my mind."

"And now I know you're real, I think I'm losing mine," he replied gruffly. Or he tried to be gruff. There was a teenage girl grinning at him like he was the best thing since Christmas. He shook his head and looked around the all but deserted parking lot, as if the answers were somewhere among the parked bikes and dying fluorescent lights.

"How you been?" she chirped at him, rocking forward on her toes and then back on her heels, jamming her hands into her pockets and grinning.

"I've been...fine." Real world Zoey looked the same, but there was a difference here. She had a book bag, not a loaded weapon, and he was struck by the sudden gulf between them. He didn't really feel like telling her about his life. Not at all.

"How can two people have the same dream? Nightmare. I mean, that's what you're talking about, right? All the...vampires and shit." It just seemed even crazier when he said it out loud. "What about the others?" He might feel a bit better if Bill turned out to _not_ be some twisted father figure from his imagination.

"You're the first one I've found," she said, "I only started looking like a week ago."

How could anyone take any of this seriously? It was mad. He looked back at Zoey. She had.

"You were looking for me. Why? Did you want all of that to be real?"

Zoey gave a small shrug, her grin faltering a little at his question, and she looked away, rocking back and forth on her toes and heels again.

"I just... I mean it _was_ horrible, but," she grimaced, "I wanted you and Bill and Louis to be real. I thought you'd be the easiest to find. I've been... I've been cruising biker bars for the past week. Finals are over and it's summer break, so I have spare time. My parents aren't breathing down my neck as much, either."

She shrugged again, looking small in the rough, ill-lit parking lot, "Sometimes I feel like all of _this_ is a dream."

The teen offered him a small smile.

"I didn't like feeling like I was crazy," she added, "I just... I jump at loud noises, and somehow I know what a gun _ought_ to feel like when I hold a fake one, but I can't... if that was all a dream, then how come I _know_ that stuff?"

Her cell phone buzzed and she jumped and pulled it out, grimacing when the caller id displayed. She held up a finger in the universal sign of '_wait a sec, I need to take this_' and flipped it open. It looked brand new, the metallic plastic shining even in the murky streetlight.

"'Lo? Yeah, dad," she said, "Yeah I'm just... I forgot something at Amanda's place," she cringed and hunched her shoulders a little at the flagrant lie, but apparently Mr. Zoey swallowed it, because the conversation continued, "Yeah, my iPod. Yeah. I _know_. I'll be home soon, okay? I know. I _know_ dad."

In spite of herself she rolled her eyes and cocked her hip, pursing her lips at whatever lecture she was getting. Her body language reeked of '_Dad, you're_ so _lame!_'.

"I'll text you when I'm almost home okay?" she said, "So you know when to order. Okay. Love you too. Bye."

She flipped the phone shut and sighed irritably, jamming it back into her bag. Francis waited until she'd finished listening to her dad lecture her before launching into one of his own.

"You've been trawling biker bars? Zoey, that was a really stupid idea, what if you'd gotten yourself in trouble? I notice you don't carry a rifle these days." Well, this was definitely the Zoey he remembered. Once she'd set her mind to something it happened, no matter what got in her way. He shook his head, what someone else's _daughter_ did wasn't really his business. They hadn't really met before tonight, right? And if they had, when and how?

This was making his head hurt. "Okay, maybe we should look for the others. Maybe they can tell us what the fuck is going on around here." Zoey was a fellow survivor and that was easy enough to relate to when that was all any of them were. Now, he just felt out of his depth with her. She had money and youth and respectability on her side, things he'd long lost or never had.

"I'll help you, crazy lady, all right? But I think you should get out of here. I'll give you my home number or somethin', and then you should go home to yer dad."

He needed to think. He needed to get on his bike and ride until the world made sense in his head again. "How'd you get here? I hope you weren't stupid enough to walk."

She offered him an indignant look at his lecture. When he offered to help, though, he was rewarded with a relatively smug smile, and she dug her phone out again, starting to walk towards where she'd parked her car.

"I drove," she told him, flipping the phone open and making a new entry in her address book. He watched her type in '_OMG FRANCIS_' and shook his head. "Gimme your digits. I'll give you my mobile number in a sec, I gotta dig around in my bag for a pen. I..."

They found themselves at an empty car space. Francis looked around, but the carpark wasn't exactly huge, and it didn't seem like Zoey to forget where she'd parked. Oh, you've gotta be kidding me.

"Someone stole my car," she said in a small voice, "It was... it was_ right here_, and now it isn't."

Slowly, looking more than a little embarrassed, she shrugged her shoulders at Francis, "Do you um, know the number of a cab company?"

He could begin to guess what kind of car she drove. It was probably new and cute in some bizarre colour that basically begged to be stolen in a neighbourhood like this. Assuming the thieves could suffer the damage to their masculinity to be seen driving away in it. He sighed, he could see some people standing in the doorway to the bar, presumably curious about the ongoing saga of Francis and the Crazy Girl.

"No, we're going now," he fished for his keys. "You ever ridden a bike before, kid?" This was Zoey, maybe she hadn't but still, "You're going to love it," he said quietly. He was sure he remembered sitting in some godforsaken tin box daydreaming about taking her for a ride. These weren't exactly the circumstances he'd envisaged but whatever.

Given the way her face had lit up, his guess was probably a correct one. He remembered his first time on a bike, and decided to pass on the wisdom his father had given him.

He only had one helmet, and he gave it to her. Plonking it down on her head, it looked enormous. "Chin up," he said, tugging at the straps. "Being a passenger is easy, just lean when I do and hang on. If you let go, you'll die, if you lean too far, we both die." Quick grin. "So don't throw your weight around."

"I live, um," she said, her thoughts obviously more occupied with his dire warnings than directions, "Willow Run Estates, on the north side of the city. Sort of right above Squirrel Hill. It... if you take the expressway east I can point you in the right direction, if you don't know the area."

That was an expensive area, and Francis was only familiar with it in the sense that he knew it existed, but they weren't about to be going fast anyway, so she'd be able to give him more concrete directions later. He grinned at her in his helmet and he wheeled his bike away from the others a few feet so she'd have more room to get on. "Hang on a sec," he twisted the key in the ignition and the machine roared to life. He beckoned her over, and once she had a good grip said over his shoulder, "You ready?" It was easy enough to talk when they weren't moving so he'd slow down if he needed directions.

Someone cheered drunkenly at them as Francis took them out of the car park. And they were off.

Zoey hung on very tightly at first, probably afraid she was going to fall off or make him fall or any combination of the two as a result of his dire warnings. Francis, on the other hand, was having a great time. Even if he didn't know where or when he knew Zoey from, he could worry about that later. Right now he had the wind in his hair, nearly deserted streets to ride in, and an eighteen year old clinging to him. Although not as much as she was; he could feel her getting the hang of it, learning to lean when he did and be a bit more brave.

When they got close, she started pointing out where Francis needed to go, and he started feeling like he should have dressed up for the occasion. This was a posh neighbourhood and even being here (and making all this noise) was bound to raise some eyebrows. All the properties were two stories minimum, many with custom architecture. Two car garages abounded. There was even the sound of a pool party.

"This street," she said at a stop sign, pointing to the left, "It's the big white one. It... wait a sec, tell me your phone number quick, before we pull up."

Francis was slightly regretful that the ride was over, but he suspected that Zoey would be okay with another ride sometime. He slowed down as he neared her house. He called the numbers out over his shoulder, and watched as the door to the house she'd pointed out opened, spilling light onto an immaculate front lawn.

"Maybe you can give me your number later," he said. "Just don't go back to that bar, alright? After tonight's performance you're goin to have a reputation, and it ain't one for good taste." Francis was speaking over the growl of his bike, and wasn't exactly a quiet man at the best of times.

And the middle aged guy in the business suit appeared to be turning an interesting shade of purple. Francis knew that angry father look. Welcome to fifteen years ago, he thought. Francis didn't object to being huddled against for protection against her father's anger, but it was probably only making things worse.

"Zoey!" he said in a tone rich with hurt, anger, and a good dose of righteous indignation. "Where is your car-"

"Stolen," Francis said helpfully. He got a death-glare for his trouble.

"Where have you been? I thought you were at Amanda's and you turn up like this? Haven't I warned you about childish teenage rebellion? I expected better from you. And where did you dig up this..." he seemed unable to grasp an epithet suitable to describe Francis.

"Lemmie help with that helmet, you're not going to have a proper argument wearing that thing." He reached up to undo the straps.

She straightened quickly when the biker moved to help her with her helmet, raising her chin to allow him access until her father barked at him, "Don't touch her!"

Francis backed off. No need to call the cops. He held up his hands. "On the right, just press in the bit in the middle and pull." Zoey followed Francis' instructions, pulling the helmet off and shaking her hair out a little before handing it to him, sneaking him an apologetic look. Francis felt sorry for her; her father wasn't bothering _him_ particularly.

"Dad, don't freak out," she said, bracing a hand on Francis' back to dismount from the bike, "I got a flat tire on my way home and ended up in this shonky bar, and I went in to ask if anyone knew who I should call for a tow. The bartender gave me the number, but when I came back outside, my car was gone. Francis," she pointed at the biker, "Gave me a ride home. So _thank you_, Francis, for helping me out. And letting me wear your helmet."

Francis readjusted the straps on his helmet while Zoey spun her little tale. It wasn't bad, wasn't bad at all considering she'd come up with it on the spot.

"Why didn't you call a cab?"

"Hey, that bar was no place for a girl like her to wait for a cab," Francis said.

"And you," he turned on Francis, despite being about five inches shorter and about fifty pounds lighter, "I know what you want. I heard you ask for her number. You think you can play white knight on that deathtrap, but I know your kind and if I see you around here again I'll call the cops." Francis looked back steadily and pulled on his helmet. "She's thanked you, and she doesn't owe you anything."

"Yeah," Francis revved the engine. "She's saved my hide enough times I reckon we can call it even." He winked at Zoey and turned back onto the street. Sorry kid, looks like you're in for a fun evening.


	4. Chapter 4

"I can't believe your car got stolen," Amanda scowled, looking over at Zoey in the passenger's seat when they came to a red light, "And I can't believe you didn't get grounded for it."

"Well it wasn't like I _asked _for it to get stolen," Zoey said as she gazed out the window at traffic, "It just sort of turned out that way, you know? Anyway, he was just glad I was safe at the end of the day. Pizza night salvaged."

"I hope this means you're done going to those sorts of places."

"Yeah," she replied, smirking to herself.

Amanda flicked a look over at her friend and college roommate, and Zoey looked back, raising her eyebrows.

"Are you ever going to tell me what you were looking for?" she asked.

Zoey shifted her jaw and sank a little in her seat. She hadn't been able to come up with a good excuse for it, having only previously cited wanting to try 'something new'. Visiting bar after bar with a flimsy reason was pretty suspect, and Amanda had been covering for her without a solid explanation. She was a good friend, but she was concerned now, and Zoey figured Amanda thought she was on drugs or something. Obviously the _truth _was right out. Amanda wouldn't even the humor the idea. How did she explain this so that it sounded sane?

"Amanda, have you ever... ever had a really, _really_ vivid dream?" she asked, feeling awkward and strange, not looking at her friend, "The kind where awhile after it you feel like it really happened? Even though it's crazy?"

"Not really," Amanda frowned, "I mean once I dreamed I wrote this term paper and showed up for class empty handed but that's it. Did you have a dream about a skeevy bar?"

"No," Zoey laughed, "The people in my dream seemed so real, though. Like I_ knew_ them."

"Creepy," the redhead responded, "It was only a dream though. Are you going nuts or something? Why would you look for dream people?"

"I dunno," Zoey muttered, rubbing her face. Normally she'd be agreeing with Amanda, but after last night, it was hard to consider the possibility that she was nuts.

"You're just burnt out from school," Amanda said decisively, pulling into a parking lot and hunting for a space, "We'll have some fun today, okay?"

"Yeah," Zoey said. They were joining up with some other friends to play frisbee. Later, there was a party at Josh's that was supposed to be the one that set the precedent for the rest of the summer. Zoey was having a hard time getting motivated to get into it - she wanted to find the others, and she wanted to call the number she'd gotten last night to confirm if it was real or not. Maybe she could skirt out and have lunch with him or something. She'd have to be careful not to get caught by her dad again, or it would call her flat-tire story into question.

It had taken all her willpower not to have Amanda take her to a sporting goods store for a helmet.

The park was busy, people of all stripes enjoying the beautiful weather, and for a little while, Zoey enjoyed their frisbee game. She spent more time just watching people, watching how carefree they were, how little they paid attention to their surroundings. Zoey vaguely remembered being like that. The wide open area didn't do anything for her peace of mind, and when she wasn't playing frisbee, she at least kept her back to a solid tree. She envied her friends, and prayed she'd be able to shake the ever-present feeling of impending doom enough to enjoy the party tonight. Josh's parents were out of town and there was talk of his older brother buying them a keg.

"What do you want to do for lunch?" Christine asked, flopping down next to her, "We were thinking of Applebee's."

Zoey grimaced and fidgeted with her phone, "I might have plans. Lemme check."

She flipped it open, searched her addresses and called Francis' number, chewing her lower lip.

"Ohh, who's _Francis?_" Christine asked, having been peeping over her shoulder, eyes glittering, "Look at _you_ all nervous. Do I know him?"

"No, _shh_," Zoey said shortly, trying to shoo the blonde away.

"Invite him to the party," Christine grinned.

"I don't think it's his scene," Zoey said flatly, "Shh, it's ringing!"

Christine, despite Zoey's attempts to shoo her, sat and watched her with a smug grin. Zoey glared at her, resolved that Christine would listen to her half of the conversation and read way too much into it.

The phone rang. He picked up almost immediately, and she picked up on what sounded like sports news for a moment before he muted it.

"Yeah, hello?" It was definitely him.

"Hey!" Zoey said, brightening visibly, so much so that it shone through in her voice.

"Hey kid. Yer dad didn't kill you after all. Got yer number?" He sounded relieved to hear her, as if he hadn't been quite sure she was real either. Christine grinned, already reading too much into Zoey's expression, and her friend was beside herself while Zoey recited her number for the biker.

"Ohmigawd," Christine squealed, "You_ never_ give out your number! Zo-_eeeyy!_"

"_Jesus_ Christine!" she hissed, mortified, "I'm on the phone! Sorry. Um."

Zoey rubbed her forehead, feeling suddenly awkward. Here she was in a group of her peers calling a middle aged biker from the park, considering having lunch with him so they could talk. Talk about zombies and their zombie-killing pals. This was _weird_, wasn't it? There was just something so bizarre about it. She remembered things being considerably less awkward, though how that was possible surrounded by horrible monsters was a tad beyond her. Maybe with the zombies to focus on, things were just easier all around.

"Do you want to have lunch?" she came out with. Christine's delighted giggles filled the background.

"Yeah, I could do some lunch. I have somewhere to go later, but," he replied.

"What's going on?" Amanda asked, looking at Christine.

"Zoey's asking some guy out to lunch!" Christine said, quite proud of her gossip. Amanda gasped and Zoey wanted to melt into the ground. _God _this was embarrassing.

"Who is it?"

"Some guy named Francis."

"Ohhh he sounds cute!"

"Help me," Zoey muttered into her phone, resting her face in her palm.

Francis was obviously picking up enough of the conversation going on around her to get the gist, and he laughed good-naturedly at her plea, although he sounded a bit uncertain as to how he could possibly help. "Uh. If you owe me the money for a helmet, I could give ya a lift." He didn't sound too happy about having to ask her for the money. "But I ain't driving you 'round in daylight without one."

"Oh, sure," Zoey said, nodding even though he couldn't see, "I got cash on me. I would've gotten one myself today but yeah, lack of wheels sort of cramped my style in that regard. My treat for lunch, too, since my dad flipped out on you. I'm at the park on fifth street downtown, near the fountain. I'm sure I'll hear you coming."

Her friends had gone quiet, and she took that as an ominous sign - they were listening to her conversation intently, and Amanda was texting or some other gossipy shit, tapping the keys on her phone wildly. _Goddamnit_, Amanda. If she saw this shit on Facebook tonight she was going to _throttle_ her. Even Josh and Tom had stopped chucking the frisbee back and forth, exchanging looks at each other, trying to guess what the girls were on about.

"Alright, I'll see you there." He obviously wasn't one to drag out phonecalls, and he hung up.

Zoey suffered a great deal of scrutiny from her friends once she hung up, but told them all, in no uncertain terms, that it was none of their business and she was still coming to the party tonight. Amanda looked especially put out, seeing as she wasn't even telling her best friend all the details, but it couldn't be helped. There simply weren't words for Francis, and they'd see for themselves soon enough.

It wasn't hard to pick out the growl of Francis' motorcycle and she got to her feet, scooping up her book-bag and fixing the strap across her chest. It was lighter today, with only her laptop and some other essentials inside. She grimaced. Not much of a bike riding outfit, dressed in her red singlet with a movie title on it (Night of the Living Dead was scrawled in gruesome lettering), joined by jean shorts and converse sneakers. Well, she hadn't really thought ahead much on today, so there was no helping it. Zoey jogged towards the road and waved the biker down, putting her sunglasses up on her forehead, grinning in spite of herself. There was something innately badass about getting picked up by a guy on a motorcycle.

"Zoey, who is _that?_" she heard Amanda say. They'd all followed her a little, eager to meet her new friend, but their unanimous reaction was one of blank shock.

All right, maybe she should have left earlier and excused herself to meet him in private. This was... awkward.

"That's Francis," she said, as though it explained everything, trying to escape any further questioning, "I'll see you guys tonight!"

Francis looked a bit surprised to see an audience. He brought the bike to a stop, and eyed them with a slightly shocked expression. They obviously weren't the sort of people Francis had ever had a lot to do with considering his usual hangout.

One of the boys finally got over his shock enough to speak, "Hey, nice wheels."

"Thanks, kid."

"Are you coming to the party?" Even Francis could see the blonde had an ulterior motive. Zoey knew she was making a great escape now, but she'd have to go back at some stage, face down her friends and tell some version of the truth. Francis shook his head. The last place he'd have wanted to be was at a party with a bunch of teenagers that may very well end with a visit from the cops.

He unhooked a spare helmet from his arm and tossed it at Zoey, "Here, Merry Christmas." It was matte black with the words 'Zombie Killer' stenciled across the front in white lettering. He looked rather pleased with himself for having found it. Zoey caught the helmet and looked down at it, a grin twitching onto her face when she read the front. She shot him a sly look as she tucked her sunnies away and put it on, adjusting the straps. Zombie Killer, huh? That worked for her. She'd pay him back once they'd found a place to eat. Burger Tank would do the trick, she thought, but she'd tell him once they were out of earshot of the others.

"Thanks," she said, slinging her book-bag around onto her back before climbing onto his bike behind him, "See ya later guys - Christine, _don't take a picture!_"

Christine and Amanda both had their camera phones aimed at them. Christine was grinning and Amanda only looked vaguely confused. Francis gave Zoey a dubious look over his shoulder, obviously not happy with the prospect of having his picture taken either.

"If you put that shit on the internet I'll kill you_ both_," Zoey threatened. There was a murderous tone in her voice that her friends, having no idea how good Zoey was with a gun, laughed off.

"Bon voyage!" Christine said cheekily, "Don't forget to write!"

"Shut up, Christine," Zoey suggested, settling closer to Francis and putting her arms around his middle. He could drive off anyyyytime now.


	5. Chapter 5

Louis was in trouble. His day hadn't been going all that well to begin with. He'd been late leaving, nearly late for a meeting, and he'd gotten someone's latte wrong. To make up for it, he'd accepted an extra assignment, but of course his usual tasks ended up consuming more time than usual, and he'd had to stay late. Trying to minimize his chew-out time, he'd called Rachel, explaining to her that he was going to be later than she thought, and did she just want take out tonight? She'd said yes, and then given him a short list of things to buy. She'd sounded mad. He loved her but sometimes he thought she was maybe a little too high maintenance to be in a relationship with a tech guy. Louis couldn't help it if some jackass downloaded a virus or deleted an important file.

So here he was, standing in line (he was always standing in goddamn line) at the CVS, trying to hide a box of tampons in a gossip rag, a half-gallon of milk making his fingers numb. Two of the items were humiliating in their own way, but god fucking _forbid_ he came home without them. Though it was getting late (the freeway was going to be a nightmare), it was still fairly crowded, and he glanced over at the Pharmacy while he waited in line, just for something to do. Some old couple was arguing quietly with the pharmacist, probably about if their health care covered their drugs, and he sighed, shaking his head. Oh well, right? There was nothing he could do about it now. He'd voted for Obama.

Maybe he ought to call ahead to the take-away place to minimize time. He pulled out his cell phone and considered the idea, but who knew how long this whacko was going to argue about her coupons with the only cashier on duty. The place had four registers but only one was manning the lengthening line.

Rachel wanted to move into a place downtown. They both worked in the city, and it'd certainly cut commuting time, but it was so damned expensive, and he was considering quitting more and more every day. He just didn't know. It all seemed like a bunch of white noise sometimes, and he didn't like the feeling, not sure how he could make it go away.

The front door chimed as someone came in, and he didn't even look over at them, loosening his red tie and sighing. He hoped whoever it was liked waiting in line.

Vaguely, he heard, "I'll be right with you, Mr. Overbeck. It won't be long."

Louis frowned and tilted his head slightly. Where did he know that name from? The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, same with his arms, and he decided it couldn't hurt to look. He was just standing here, right? Switching his milk to the other hand, he turned his head and peered over at the pharmacy again.

It was like seeing someone famous he'd only seen on tv. No, weirder. Like meeting a fictional _character_ he'd only seen on tv. He looked older. Normal. Maybe it was someone else. Louis found himself drifting out of the line, following the old man as he walked down one of the isles, looking at toothpaste. Or was he? The man was tense, the lines on his face set into a careful mask, and that steely gaze wasn't focused on the display in front of him but had somehow managed to pin Louis in place from the corner of his eye.

"Goddamn it, Louis. What the hell are you staring at?" he scowled.

Louis gaped at the man in the toothpaste aisle. He hadn't even noticed that he'd wandered out of line, absently setting the milk on a shelf as he passed, staring at the man in front of him. He _knew_ that guy. He'd never met him before, but he _had_, hadn't he? It was the same steel grey eyes, the snow white hair... all he was missing was his green beret and his assault rifle. That was impossible, though. There was... that had been a _dream_.

"Bill?" Louis said, approaching the older man warily, as though fearful he might bite, "Is that...? Uh..._ huh_."

His brow creased and he put one hand on the top of his head, pressing down a little, a rather fitful expression on his face.

"I'm losin' it," he said quietly. Bill knew his name. Of _course_ he did. They'd only spent every day together, practically living out of each other's pockets for god knew how many weeks. Bill, and Francis, and Zoey. Louis decided he felt kind of woozy and braced a hand against a shelf. Bill was real. What the _hell? _Did that mean the rest of it was real? That the others were?

This just wasn't his day.

Bill didn't look too comfortable with the situation either. He stared hard at Louis, as if willing him to explain himself, or to disappear. Louis felt inexplicably guilty, as if the whole thing was somehow his fault. He knew it wasn't but beret or not, Bill had that paternal knack of putting Louis on the defensive.

"Mr Overbeck?"

Louis watched Bill practically eviscerate the pharmacist with a look, not envying him in the least. He'd been on the receiving end of that stare before. Maybe not as many times as Francis, maybe, but he'd been up there. When they had been out shooting zombies _what the hell_ that was _insane_. But he was still here. He was Bill, just... normal. Just like Louis was. Just a regular schmoe who had to stop into CVS to pick crap up sometimes.

He noticed Bill flick a look at what he was holding and he grimaced, attempting to hide the items under his arm far too late to even be worth the time.

"So, uh," he tried again, "You wanna... uh, talk outside? About...?"

Louis trailed off and looked around warily, not wanting anyone in earshot to hear him, but he wasn't confident. The store was crowded, and he mouthed '_zombies_', cringing afterward. This shit was _crazy_. Maybe this wasn't happening to him and he was having some stress-related dream. He'd wake up, and Rachel would ask him to take the day off, and he'd assure her he would once they'd gotten the current client's system sorted...

Nope. This was real. Shit. _Shit_.

Bill nodded, "It might be a good idea." He turned and approached the quailing pharmacist, and Louis was sure he caught a muttered, "Goddamn imaginary friends."

Louis resumed his position in the queue, which luckily had shortened considerably while he and Bill had been staring at each other. He'd gone numb, he thought, in some last-ditch attempt to consider himself not-crazy. It wasn't really working.

Louis was glad to have his purchases in the nondescript plastic bag when he came out of the CVS, locating Bill easily. He was still smoking, huh? After all that crazy shit he didn't blame him. Why bother quitting if the world was going to hell, right? Except it wasn't, and none of that had really happened. Or it had. Sorta of? Crap. If nothing else, it was oddly reassuring to see those familiar movements, reminiscent of a dozen safehouses, and a hundred alcoves.

"I hope you got some kind of explanation for all of this," Bill said, as soon as they were both outside. Shit. What kind of explanation was there? But you couldn't fake the fact that they knew each other. Bill could bark orders, and for the most part Louis would follow. Strangers didn't do that. He shook his head.

"Man, I would tell you if I knew," Louis said, loosening his tie enough to pull it off entirely, "I thought I was just trippin' or something. You know, work related stress or some shit." It hadn't been the most convincing explanation, but he'd given himself no other choice to believe it. And judging from Bill's expression - pissed off like God had just pulled the rug out from under him - he'd constructed something similar to keep reality in its place as well.

"What about Zoey? ...Francis. Did they?" Make it out alive? Return to the real world? Exist in the first place? Bill ran a hand over his head, an attempt to adjust his beret became a gesture of bemusement. "Just when I'd convinced myself that life was normal again," he muttered.

Louis wondered if he looked as woozy as he felt when Bill said the names out loud and he shook his head, shrugging his shoulders minutely.

"I don't know," he said, "I mean... we're okay, right? So they probably are. I mean, hypothetically, right? If... shit, man, this is fuckin' with me."

Louis ran both hands over his face and up over his shaved head, leaving them up there when they reached the top.

"Does this mean all that shit happened?" he whispered, "How is that even possible? I mean one minute we're," some people walked past and he stopped talking, resuming a few paces after his thought, "And the next, my phone is ringin' and someone is askin' me to come into work early. What the hell is that shit _about?_"

He sounded almost angry, and he supposed he was. This was not what he needed right now. Rachel was worried about him, he was sick and damn tired of his job, and a million other things were plaguing him as well. Why did this have to happen when he'd finally convinced himself it was all just some messed up stress dream?

Bill seemed to draw amusement from Louis's diatribe, and he almost smiled. "Reckon you're the Louis I remember," he said. And Louis felt a rush of relief. So, if Bill wasn't a figment of _his_ imagination, and he wasn't a figment of _Bill's_ that left them precisely as bewildered as when they'd started. But Bill had been, still was really, his friend. And the thought of maybe finding the others was enough to make Louis as hopeful and happy as he'd been in a long time.

"We gotta try and find 'em," Bill observed, giving voice to Louis's unspoken thoughts. "Maybe they're already looking for us. Well, Zoey would." He smiled fondly, and Louis realised she'd meant a lot to him - Bill had never mentioned any children of his own, and the thought of him regaining what amounted to a foster-daughter was enough to make Louis feel all fuzzy.

He shrugged, "She goes to college, right? You're the one up-to-date on the world, I expect you'll have some ideas." Or a really good excuse if he didn't, his look implied.

"Carnegie Mellon University, but they'd be on break now," Louis said, creeped out how promptly he responded to Bill's cues, "Hell, she was always makin' jokes about Facebook, I bet we could find her on there no problem."

Bill nodded carefully, "That sounds fine, Louis." Louis wondered if Bill even had the foggiest idea what he was talking about, but he wasn't quite game to ask him.

Maybe he wasn't crazy. Two people couldn't be crazy about the exact same thing, could they? That wasn't possible. But were zombies anymore plausible? Shit. Whatever. He was just going to do what Bill said. That usually worked out.


	6. Chapter 6

"You uh, busy tonight? You could come over for dinner and we could check it out," he said, though he had a very bad feeling in the back of his head. How was he going to explain this to Rachel? He was already a lot later than he'd meant to be, and now he was bringing home some cranky old dude who could kick his ass two hundred different ways. Not that Rachel really knew about the last part.

Jesus, introducing Bill to his fiancee was probably the worst damned idea he'd ever had, but this was important shit. She'd just... she'd have to understand, right? He could say Bill was someone's dad from work who needed help setting up an email account. He was always doing annoyingly nice shit like that for people. Yeah. Yeah, that could work.

"Of course I am. I got tickets to the Ballet, don't I?" Bill responded grumpily. He nodded, and relented a bit, "Decent of ya, Louis." It was solidifying already, becoming real. Of course Zoey was out there, "Francis might be a bit harder to find," he observed. "Maybe we could just wait until he holds up a convenience store or something, or ask around the hospitals for any recently admitted too-stupid-to-live bikers."

"Cool, man," Louis said, feeling a weird surge of purpose as he got out his phone and his keys, "You can follow me to my place. My uh, my fiancee is there so yeah, you've been warned."

He raised the plastic bag a little, imagining that Bill had some idea what he was going home to. A lopsided smile split his face and he reached out, lightly hitting Bill's arm, "It's good to see you, man."

Starting into the parking lot, he aimed his keys at his Cadillac and disarmed the alarm, the crisp 'beeping' noise making him look around furtively. He usually suppressed the habit, but running into Bill had made things that much more real. Louis flipped his phone open and called up the pizza place - she'd probably be expecting Chinese, but pizza would have to do for tonight.

Louis drove a little over the speed limit, but he checked in his rear-view mirror for Bill occasionally, making sure the veteran was following him okay. Not that he doubted Bill was the sort that ever got lost, but it was a courtesy habit. When they pulled off the expressway, they made their way into a relatively built up area, and turned into a parking garage outside a ten story apartment complex. It looked like an upscale area - not the priciest apartments by any means, but Louis was doing all right for himself.

He parked his car and got out, waiting for Bill to pull up as well, jingling his keys anxiously.

Bill's car was an ancient little thing that ran perfectly thanks to his careful maintenance and strict adherence to any rules regarding vehicle ownership. He followed Louis easily enough and pulled up in a 'guest' parking spot.

"Nice place you got here," he said, unable to keep himself sounding totally happy for him. He followed Louis up, looking ever so slightly out of his depth. "The last time we took an elevator," he began, leaving the thought unfinished. They'd nearly gotten their heads torn off. Back then making the trip in one piece had been a great victory.

"Thanks," Louis said, chuckling darkly, shoulders moving as he did so, "Yeah, don't remind me."

On the surface he looked very well adjusted with his smart looking briefcase and his suit jacket draped over his arm. He was well groomed, smiled easily, and overall didn't look like the sort of man you could probably count on in the zombie apocalypse. But he'd proved himself, hadn't he? He'd found cold steel under his nervous, spotless exterior, and proved to himself that he was more than just a pencil neck in IT. Louis hit the gym a few times a week now, and though Rachel didn't approve, he hit the firing range too. He'd been trying to encourage her to join him, but she couldn't understand the need for it. Though he hadn't given up on the idea, it did make him worry.

Now that his dreams were sort of proving out, he'd probably redouble his effort. If Rachel wasn't immune, though...

Louis shook his head a little to clear it, stepping out of the elevator when it let out a soft '_ding_' on the fifth floor. There were only three doors in the hall, and he went to the one on the far right, unlocking it and pushing it open.

"Hey, baby! I'm home!" he called out, wondering where she was. He hoped she hadn't stormed back to her place when he hadn't called to update her on being late(r).

"Sweetie, I was getting worried," she replied, coming out into the foyer area from the lounge room. Rachel was sharply dressed, sharper than Louis, and though she'd forgone her shoes the likelihood that she wore heels to work was high. She was an attractive woman, fit, her hair still pulled up in a no-nonsense bun. She blinked dark eyes at Louis, flicking a look at Bill, and a more polite expression spread over her face.

"I ordered pizza," he said, closing the door behind him and locking it, "Rachel, this is Bill. Bill, Rachel. Bill is uh... Pete's dad. He needed help setting up an email account and since Pete's outta town..."

Rachel wrinkled her nose at pizza, but smiled at Louis' lie, killing him a little inside, "Okay. Nice to meet you, Bill. You're in good hands."

"Ma'am," Bill said politely.

Louis exhaled a tight sigh of relief and tossed his jacket and suitcase on a chair. So far so good, right? She was in a good mood tonight, or at least, in a good mood with company over. He crossed over to her and handed her the CVS bag, kissing her on the cheek.

"Thanks baby," she said, taking it from him, pulling the gossip mag out, "Good thing I had you pick this up, huh?"

"All right, let's get this er, email account opened then," Bill said a bit awkwardly. Lying wasn't his style. She bought it. "You do this sorta thing a lot then?" he asked Louis, with gentle sarcasm. He didn't know the least thing about computers, but he pulled up a chair and looked attentive.

The background on Louis' computer was a picture of Rachel smiling and waving a short distance away from the camera, sitting under an umbrella on the beach. He craned his neck a little, making sure she was still busy, and clicked on his web browser. It loaded quickly and the goofy, multicolored Google logo greeted them. Louis clicked on a bookmark and loaded up Facebook. There was a picture of himself in the corner of his homepage - he was wearing sunglasses and a smarmy grin. He grimaced and looked sideways at Bill. He hadn't picked the picture himself, okay?

"Okay," he said, figuring Rachel ought to at least hear talking, "We'll put in her name, and then narrow it to this state, and see if we get lucky."

Zoey wasn't a very common name. There was that actress, and then there was the spunky teen who had seen too many damn movies, and those were the only two he knew about. Louis did what he'd explained, brow creased in concentration, leg bouncing absently as the clunky website considered his request. When it finally loaded he leaned a little closer even though he could see fine, and then leaned way back, rubbing the side of his face. Well, holy shit.

There she was. The first result. It was a picture that someone else had taken of her, something candid judging by her slightly raised eyebrows, but she was smiling, hand half up in a wave. It was cropped at the shoulder, but she had her hair up in a ponytail. Hell, she even had the pink hoodie on. Louis didn't think it was possible to mistake those ice blue eyes, either.

"No shit," Louis said quietly, glancing at Bill. He clicked on it, praying that her profile was public. It was.

_**Zoey **__hates camera phones_, was her status message at the very top, and Louis felt as though someone had walked over his grave. Did Zoey's status update have an in-joke he knew about? He was looking at some teenage girl's Facebook and he_ knew _her. He scrolled down, reading the comments gracing the page, eyes darting over the screen rapidly. Most of them seemed to be ribbing her, perhaps the source of her status, but he didn't want to read all of them just now.

"Not bad, Louis." Bill leaned closer, staring at the screen. She was alive. "Well, can we err...email her?" he asked, hoping it wasn't a stupid question. If they had her picture there had to be some way to contact her, right? "Just another incomprehensible college kid."

Someone had tagged her with their photo album, and the thumbnail made Louis stop breathing. He clicked on it and the site chugged, loading the full sized picture slowly in spite of his connection. Shitheap site. It was a marvel it ran at all.

It was a side on, slightly grainy picture of Zoey on the back of a motorcycle. The large tattooed man she was sitting behind was unmistakable. Francis. The picture was titled '_zoeys new bf lol_', and the first comment underneath was from Zoey herself, a slightly less good-natured '_goddammit_' in reply. There were many more comments, largely in the vein of teasing Zoey for her 'new bf', but Louis didn't scroll down to read them, staring at the picture instead. What were the odds? Had they just ran into each other too? He found that a bit hard to believe, considering, but he'd ran into Bill, hadn't he?

"That son of a bitch!" Bill said quietly, as he gazed at the grainy picture "That's Francis," he said unnecessarily. "She found him." He didn't think Francis had anywhere near the smarts to find her. Besides, she was the one who knew about computers.

"Hell, if it was that easy, what've we been doin' all this time?" Bill said animatedly. He was looking less like a ordinary old man and more like the commander (commando?) that Louis remembered from their adventures.

"Dunno about you," Louis said, "But I was thinkin' you all were part of some fucked up dream. We can send her a message."

Louis clicked around a bit, eventually bringing up a text box, but he stared blankly at the blinking cursor for a minute, not even sure what to say. She'd found Francis, so it was safe to assume she was keen to find them too, right? She wouldn't think she was being stalked by some random dude? He needed a better profile picture. Louis didn't know why Rachel liked this one too much.

He rattled the keys idly, thinking, and finally typed in, '_Hey girl. I think we should meet up. Bill says hi._', and then added his cell number at the bottom. Louis glanced at Bill and shrugged, questioning. What else was there to say, really?

"You want me to put your number on here too, just in case she calls and I'm at work or somethin'?" he offered, fingers still hovering over the keys. The intercom buzzed, but Rachel got up to get it - the pizza was here and they didn't have much time to stuff around before she expected them to join her.

"Yeah, it can't hurt." Bill gave Louis his number.

Louis had become well practiced at keeping his crazy to himself, but Bill would have easily noticed how he had his phone sitting out on the table while they ate even if Rachel didn't. He did manage to not glance at it every five seconds. She was a college kid, and she was probably out doing normal teenager things like getting high and going to the club or something. He had a hard time thinking of her as a college kid, though. She had been a genuine badass, just as tough as any of them, hell, tougher than him if he was honest with himself. What was it like for her to be back to normal? Probably great. She was able to hang out with her girlfriends and talk to boys her age.

But maybe it wasn't. She'd found the meanest looking motherfucker in the group first, and it was doubtful it was on accident. At what point did a college girl on break run into an ex-con by accident?

Rachel made polite small talk, and though Louis could tell she wasn't quite_ sure_ about Bill, her manners were too well ingrained for her to say anything untoward. She was going to grill him after Bill left, though, and he wondered if giving some teenager his cell number had been a good idea. Zoey really liked Bill, though, so she'd probably try him first. If she checked her messages tonight, anyway.

As they finished their pizza, Louis realized that Bill would have to leave soon, and he didn't want him to. He wanted to talk to him all night, try and get their shit straightened out, and camp out the phone waiting for Zoey to call. But he couldn't.

Rachel cleared the pizza boxes and napkins, giving them a moment.

"I'm probably gonna have to turn my phone off when you leave," he whispered, "Tell Zoey I said hi."

Bill nodded, "Thank Rachel for being patient." He was going to thank her himself when he left, but it couldn't hurt to do it twice. "I appreciate her putting up with me. Guess she gets a lot of practice putting up with you." He cracked a smile, which faded just as fast. "I'm glad you got her back, Louis." He looked a bit awkward, but his words were heartfelt. He didn't do heartfelt for too long though, "I should get back home, in case she calls."

"All right. Take it easy, Bill. Talk to you soon, I guess," he said, quickly adding, "Or uh, email you," when Rachel came back in.

"It was lovely meeting you," Rachel said, guessing that Louis was saying goodbye, "I hope Louis helped you out. I know I'd be lost without him if something happened to my computer."

Louis smiled fondly at her and stood, offering Bill a polite handshake, "Drive safe."

For the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to tomorrow.


	7. Chapter 7

The party had been... all right. It was a party. Too many people crammed into a house together getting too drunk and too loud. Zoey had spent most of it assuring her girlfriends that everything was fine, that she wasn't doing meth, and that she definitely wasn't going out with a motorcycle-driving middle aged man. Amanda had hounded her the most, trying to figure out just how the hell Zoey had met him, but she avoided the question like the plague. She just couldn't think up a good enough lie, and she didn't want to inadvertently get Francis in trouble somehow, so she just pretended she couldn't hear that question.

She'd taken a cab home, since Amanda had wanted to stay, and slouched up to her room after proving that she hadn't been drinking. Staring at her ceiling, Zoey decided she couldn't sleep. It was nearly midnight, but she wasn't the least bit tired. Maybe she ought to look up those apartments, like she'd told Francis she would, and putter around a bit on addresses for computer shops.

That put some fire back into her belly and she sat up, settling into her chair and flicking her computer on. The monitor lit up the darkened room and she curled her feet underneath her, getting into her _serious computer business _mode. Automatically, she checked her email, scanning through it. More teasing about the picture Christine had posted of her and Francis. She'd tried to talk Christine into taking it down, but she was determined to leave it up for posterity. Teasing, teasing, incredulity, teasing, Louis-

_Louis_.

She clicked on the message and read it over a dozen times, frantically digging through her bag for her phone a moment later. Who should she call first? Francis, to tell him that Louis (she should have known he'd manage it!) had found Bill and then herself? Or should she call Louis? It was late, though, and Louis probably had to work early in the morning. And Bill might be sleeping. Even Francis might be sleeping right now (or something else that he wouldn't want interrupted) and she fought with herself a good five minutes before she decided Bill was the safest bet.

Zoey entered both numbers into her phone before dialing up Bill, her heart racing.

The phone rang three times before it was answered, and when it was the response was gruff and carefully neutral. Not the voice of someone who'd been waiting for a call, of course.

"Hello?"

She jumped a little when a voice she was so familiar with growled out over the phone, and though her eyes did mist a bit, she'd gotten most of her happy tears on Francis' singlet the other night. Things were_ officially_ real. More officially. Extra officially? She'd come back to that thought later.

"Bill!" Zoey said, though she forced herself to keep her voice hushed, "It's me, it's Zoey! Hi! How are you? Are you okay? Oh my god, I was worried I wasn't going to be able to find you! Sorry it's so late but I just got in and saw the message from Louis. Have you seen him? Is he okay?"

Zoey couldn't help it as the words poured out of her mouth and she bounced a little in her chair, getting up and flinging herself back onto her bed. Louis had definitely sent her that message, then. She'd call him tomorrow. Maybe she'd screw with him a little, pretend like she was an irate customer on the phone. Say there was a zombie in her modem. He'd appreciate that.

"Slow down, Zoey. I ain't so old I don't remember who ya are." There was a pause while he sorted the answers to her questions into the right order. "I'm fine! I'm fine. Goddamn doc can't find a thing wrong with me." He didn't elaborate and moved on before she could ask for any more details about doctors. "And yeah, Louis is fine. Still as over-excitable as you are. He used the computer to find you."

Speaking of which. "Nice to see you found the meathead. I take it he's outta jail now. Will wonders never cease?"

Zoey grinned ear to ear while she listened to Bill talk, and though he couldn't see, she nodded obediently when he told her to slow down. It was an automatic response. What Bill said, went.

"Yeah, he had a parole meeting today," she said, rolling onto her stomach as though she was talking to one of her girlfriends, "Dunno how it went. Find out tomorrow I guess. He's gonna be glad to hear you and Louis are okay."

She let out a happy sigh. Her life was complete, right now. If the outbreak happened again (why had it UNhappened?), she had all her boys on speed dial. So. She was on the phone with a Vietnam veteran. Yep.

"I'm so glad, Bill," Zoey said, obviously attempting to reign it in for his benefit, "For a while there I thought I was losing it, you know? But it _happened_."

"We don't know that it did happen," he said gently, trying to be the voice of reason. "I mean we all remember it, but the rest of the world don't." He sounded a bit disappointed, not that the world was safe, but that there had been no celebrations of their return, no joyful reunions, just life going on as it always had.

"But I'm glad you made it out okay, Zoey. We all did, I guess. You should see Louis's place, even his toaster looks like a fucking space station." His tone was getting lighter the longer he talked, like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "We gotta meet up sometime, Louis owes us jobs, remember?"

Zoey burst out laughing at his space station comment, delighted. Bill had a way with words that always had her in stitches, no matter how dire the situation was. And he knew she wasn't an irresponsible, rebellious, empty-headed teen. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but wasn't too worried. Her parents were either already asleep or would just assume she was gossiping about the party. Still. She'd do her best to minimize risk.

"I guess we should... I dunno, does Louis get long lunch breaks? Maybe dinner would be better," she mused, frowning a little, trying to work out the logistics, "Ergh, this is going to be a nightmare to organize. I..."

She was suddenly embarrassed by the events from yesterday and hoped Bill wouldn't be mad at her, wincing as she explained going to the biker bar, finding Francis, getting her car stolen, and having him give her a lift home to her worried, furious father. It had been a hell of a night. Not having her own car was making things very complicated. Francis couldn't exactly turn up at her house anymore, and how would she explain an old man or even Louis turning up to pick her up? She couldn't. It was very annoying to have such limited freedom.

"I'll bet your dad had something to say about that," was his only comment, but he sounded slightly amused.

"Whatever we decide, I can probably get there," Zoey concluded with, "My friend Amanda had been a good sport about me acting like a maniac lately. I bet Francis will be glad he doesn't have to drive around southside looking for you, though."

How much longer she could abuse Amanda, she didn't know. She had a feeling the answer to that was 'not much'. Amanda was going to want a solid explanation, and Zoey didn't have one that sounded sane.

"Maybe you can walk some and get a lift from there." They were all in the same city; it couldn't be that hard to get together.

"Yeah, so long as I have a good alibi," Zoey said, "I'm on kind of thin ice after showing up at home on the back of a motorcycle."

"Here, have you got Francis's number?" There was a scraping sound as he dragged a chair over to the phone. Bill had certainly never bothered upgrading to a wireless model.

She recited Francis' number for him, and then gave him her cell as well. It was a safe bet he had Louis', so they were all squared away now, for the most part. Zoey liked the warm fuzzy feeling she had right now. Meeting up with Bill and Louis would only make it stronger, too. Having all four of them in the same room... she felt a little choked up thinking about it, but she steeled herself. She'd spent too long away from zombie killing. She was getting soft.

Was that really a bad thing?

"You know where the Burger Tank is near the park downtown?" she asked, shifting on her bed again, on her back with her feet up against the wall, "That's where Francis and I ate today. It's twenty-four hours so we could just meet there again. We'd be an awfully strange group of regulars."

Burger Tank was too lowbrow for most of her friends to bother with, and she was pretty sure her parents had never stepped foot inside one, so it was discreet. Getting downtown was easy enough by bus or cab, though most of her problems were sourced in getting home rather than leaving it.

"I don't have a clue," he responded cheerfully, "but don't worry, I'll find it. I got us to the river, didn't I?" And now they had the time to reminisce about it.

* * *

"This is really fucked," Francis said, in a cold voice of pure fury. No one paid him a lot of attention, although his cellmate did open an eye just to make sure he wasn't about to psycho on him. The biker paced up and down like a caged animal, cracking his knuckles and trying to think. He did not ever want to be back in here again. Even the smell of the cleaner they used on the floor made his skin crawl.

He'd turned up to every parole meeting. Apparently. 'Riverside precinct' was scrawled on the paperwork for his last one, whatever that meant. And when he turned up to this one it all went to plan up until the point he was told his parole had been revoked. With neither explanation nor a phone call given to him, Francis was in the mood to rip someone's head off. Genuine righteous indignation was pretty rare here, although a facsimile was a common occurrence.

Everyone left him alone. He didn't want to talk to them anyway. The probably belonged here. He didn't. And if he didn't get his rights he was going to kill someone.

The guard slumped in front of the television, oblivious to the snores and muttering and swearing around him. Francis rested his head on the bars closest to him and stared at him for a long, long time.

"Where the fuck is my phone call? I got my rights, man."

"Step away from the bars." The guard didn't even look up. Francis narrowed his eyes and did as he was bid. He slumped against the wall opposite the bunks and folded his arms.

"I fucking hate cops."

This was all kinds of fucked up. _Sorry, Zoey, you're on your own again._


	8. Chapter 8

After her phone call with Bill, Zoey had been beyond eager for the big evening. She blew off her friends, she made certain her parents would be working late, and even exchanged a few silly messages with Louis on Facebook. He was too swamped at work to call her, but he was greatly looking forward to the evening. They were all going to be together again, finally. It would be _perfect_.

But Francis' phone kept ringing out. At first she'd thought maybe it was too early. He probably liked to sleep in and she was jumping the gun a little. Then maybe she thought he had another meeting. Or he'd gone out to lunch. Or maybe he had taken his bike to the shop.

Zoey was sitting in the Burger Tank now, by herself, listening to his phone ring out and getting an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. Yeah, she'd showed up early, but she'd half-expected everyone else to as well. Bill wasn't here. Maybe he needed directions?

"'Scuse me," a familiar voice said, "This seat taken?"

She ejected herself from her seat and crushed Louis with a hug, laughing, and he returned the favor.

"Look at you!" he exclaimed, sliding into the booth with her, "Damn girl it's good to see you."

"You're all spiffy," Zoey praised, forgetting her troubles for the moment.

"I'm like a half hour early," Louis said, checking his watch and picking up a menu, "How early did you get here?"

Zoey grinned sheepishly, "Maybe an hour?"

"Maybe two?" he smirked, "Bill and Francis are comin' right?"

Her face fell then and she shrugged, "I invited Bill. Francis... he isn't answering his phone. He hasn't all day."

"Maybe he's avoiding a bill collector or somethin'," Louis guessed.

"I don't think so," she frowned, shaking her head, "Yesterday he had to go to a parole meeting, and now he isn't answering his phone. I don't know Louis, I got a bad feeling."

"Do you... do you think he did something to get his parole revoked?"

Zoey shook her head no, adamant. He'd seemed confident about it, and maybe Francis wasn't a genius, but he had street smarts. And he definitely didn't seem all that keen on going back to prison.

"Well, Bill will probably turn up exactly on time," Louis assured her, "I'm sure everything's cool Zoey, don't worry about it until it's well past seven."

Zoey shifted her jaw and sipped her water. Maybe they ought to just order an appetizer and catch up. She fell into pace so easily with Louis. They were the most alike, she supposed, so it wasn't that much of a surprise.

"So hey," Louis smiled, "No zombies, huh?"

Her smile returned along with a laugh and she shook her head no. Nope, no zombies here. Catching up with Louis was easy and time passed a lot faster. It was nice to hear about his fiancee and how he'd been keeping up at the gym and the firing range. She was happy to relate her semester and her misadventures, and like Bill, he could only shake his head when she told him how she'd found Francis.

"You're crazy," he told her. They'd gone through two appetizers by now. It was half past seven and Bill still hadn't turned up.

"I thought Bill would be here by now," she sighed, poking at her coke with her straw and watching the door.

"Yeah me too," he agreed, "I'll try him, you try Francis."

Both of them came up empty handed, so to speak, flipping their cellphones shut and sharing a silence.

"He could be on his way," Louis said.

"Francis could be at the bar I guess," Zoey said.

They were silent as the waitress approached, questioning, but they waved her off.

"Something is wrong," Zoey frowned.

"Yeah," Louis agreed, tapping his cellphone on the table, "Shit. What the hell happened?"

Zoey frowned more, putting her head down in her arms, only her eyes visible as she thought. What the hell had happened? Everything had been coming together, and now it was like someone had stepped in and dumped a bucket of ice water over their heads. It wasn't like anyone in their group to go suddenly silent, to not give a warning, to just not show up at all. Something had happened to Bill and to Francis, and it was up to her and Louis to sort it out.

"What's the first thing you remember?" she said, voice muffled by her arms. He squinted at her and shook his head and she repeated it, sitting up, "There were zombies, and then...?"

"Then... then there weren't," he said, rubbing the back of his head, "I went to sleep one place and woke up back at home like nothing had happened."

"Yeah. Nothing was weird at all."

"Just us," Louis smirked, waving at the waitress, "We're gonna order, and we're gonna sort this shit out."

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a legal pad, placing it and a pen between them. One way or another, they were going to get to the bottom of things. Burger Tank was twenty four hours. So long as they ordered a damned entree they wouldn't get kicked out.

Bill gave himself plenty of time to get to Burger Tank. It wouldn't do if he couldn't find a park and had to walk for half an hour to get there. He was always on time for his useless appointments with Kid Doctor, who always made him wait for twenty minutes anyway - that kind of slackness when dealing with malingerers and flu victims wouldn't have kept even the smallest field hospital running. This appointment was orders of magnitude more important.

With his beret perched firmly on his head, he locked his apartment and took the stairs down. The lift was unreliable at the best of times; it seemed every week someone would get stuck in there for an hour or so. He was halfway down when he heard the sound of hurrying footsteps down the hallway. The door next to him burst open, and the man behind it stared at Bill in shock for a second.

Then everything went dark. Bill only caught a snatch of conversation, "...didn't think he'd take the stairs."

He woke to his worst nightmare. Not zombies overwhelming him, but a hospital room. He knew where he was before he opened his eyes; there was no other place on earth that smelled like that or sounded like that. He cracked his eyes open, and it took a lot more effort than he'd expected. What had they done to him? He felt anger, worry on behalf of Zoey who was probably wondering where he was, and a faint sense of panic that he wouldn't get out of here. But even these felt distant, smothered by a warm chemical security blanket.

They'd fucking sedated him.

Bill glared at the drip in his arm. That had to be taken care of first. He was useless like this, even if he did have a tolerance to painkillers that would rival a hollywood starlet. Once he started moving, the longer he took the more likely it was someone would look in and see him making an escape. And he was escaping, no doubt about that. He wasn't sure of quite a few things, but he was sure he wasn't goddamn sick! As far as he could tell they hadn't hooked him up to anything other than the drip anyway; if he had had a stroke or a heart attack (fuck the Kid Doctor and his 'risk factors for men over a certain age') there'd be a whole lot more technology watching him.

He rolled over and examined the needle in his arm. The tape was easy enough to pull off, and soon all that was left was the drip itself. Bill didn't even flinch as he pulled it out of his arm. He was dressed in one of those ridiculous hospital gowns. His clothes were in a folded pile on a table near his bed, but given that the hospital was crawling with patients that all looked alike, his current attire, however revolting, was more useful. He did however, scoop up his keys and wallet and put them in his beret, which he tucked under his arm. He wasn't about to leave _that_ behind unless his life depended on it.

He sat up and stayed there for a few seconds, feeling woozy. No, he had to keep going. Who knew what kind of trouble the others were in that he'd have to get them out of. He slid to his feet, grabbing the bedside table for support. Christ, who was going to believe him if he said he wasn't sick. He'd just be another frightened old patient. Get it together, soldier.

He didn't know how long it would take for his head to clear, and he couldn't afford to wait around to find out. He poked his head around the door and immediately pulled it back in again. Down the end of the corridor, a pair of medical staff were conversing casually. What had they been told? Would they try to stop him if he left?

Bill scowled, and tried to work out the best strategy. From the other end of the corridor came slow, shuffling sounds that made Bill's hair stand on end. He risked another look, but rather than snarling infected, it was only a group of patients, gripping their drip stands and shuffling along at a glacial pace. Bill frowned; in the land of the zombies there was nothing for it but to join the goddamn horde. He went back and fetched his drip stand, secretly glad he'd have something to lean on.

His disguise complete, he waited anxiously while the group walked closer. He held himself back until they were almost past his door before stepping out, pulling his wheeled crutch behind him, and joined the back of the group. The doctors kept talking, merely standing aside to let them through when they got close. Bill kept his head down and willed them to go faster, or the corridor to finally end. Every second that passed he expected to be spotted.

They turned the corner and Bill breathed a sigh of relief, before berating himself for celebrating getting twenty yards. He'd throw a party once he got out of the building.

The Mercy was a maze. There were lines indicating where pathology was, and the way to the toilets, and room numbers, but they were all blurring together. Bill shook his head. He didn't need them; he'd been here before. Think. Down that way were just rooms, he remembered Louis sweeping them with his sub machine gun but returning empty handed. There were the stairs. Probably free of debris now, but Bill didn't think he could make it down a dozen floors on foot.

If he could just remember- there was a hunter there. It had tried to jump Francis. For now the slow pace of his companions was helpful, as he tried to remember anything useful. Yes, yes he remembered. There were phones along this wall, at least, there were on the floor they'd fought through to get to the lift. Bill was a realist. He wasn't going to get out dressed like this, and even though his head was beginning to clear, he still felt fuzzy.

He abandoned the other patients and hurried as much as was possible to the phones. Christ he hoped he had some change. He shoved the drip stand to the side and picked up the receiver. Right. What was Louis's number? He'd written it down, but he'd just copied the digits off the screen without thinking. He'd never get it.

Zoey. She'd read out her number to him. He'd written them down. If he could just remember her voice, cheerful and happy. His hand hovered over the buttons. He stood there for a good three minutes, staring blankly at the phone. Was that her number? Or had he got it mixed up with when she gave him Francis's?

He glanced around and punched in the digits.

"Hello?" She sounded sleepy, and Bill wondered what time it was even as he felt a rush of relief. He'd been half expecting that she'd wind up here too; anything was possible. He hadn't thought to check his watch, and he realised he'd been out for longer than he'd thought. He knew she'd have waited for them for a while.

"Zoey!" Bill knew he sounded tired and worried, but he didn't have time for small-talk or reassurance. She'd understand. "Sorry I couldn't make it, kid. Some asshole landed me in hospital-" She started to interrupt, but he forestalled her question. "Hold up, I'm fine. Just a bit drowsy on account of the drugs. Look, I gotta get outta here. They're gonna notice I've escaped sooner or later."

"I'm gonna need an evac. My car's probably still in my garage, and I don't think I can convince a taxi driver to take me anywhere in this outfit without puttin' a gun to his head. Can you call one of the others? Make that Louis. If it came down to Francis and his suicide machine I'd rather walk."

"Francis is some kind of trouble," Zoey said quickly, "I couldn't even get a hold of him to ask him to come. Louis is checking out the police station now but if it doesn't pan out he could come get you instead. Should I tell him to bring anything? Like a change of clothes maybe?"

Well that definitely wasn't good news, but at least Louis was on the case. Whatever forces were at work here, they'd tipped their hand, a mistake that Bill wasn't going to let slide. As long as he could keep himself hidden until rescue arrived.


	9. Chapter 9

They'd managed a patchy timeline between the two of them at Burger Tank, but Louis knew that adding two more recollections to their notes would really crystallize things. Clear as mud. There was still some time unaccounted for, but that they both had a similiar span of time missing was encouraging. He didn't have time for that now, however. Right now, he was taking a gamble and assuming Francis was stashed in this particular police station. He hoped it wasn't a felony to BS your friend out of a holding cell.

His mobile rang, starting him, and he answered it promptly.

"Zoey, what's up?" Louis asked, pulling into the police station's guest parking lot. He doubted it was a good idea to be driving and on the phone right in front of the station, but it was getting late and she was probably worrying.

"Louis, hey," she said, "Look, Bill's in the hospital-"

"Oh, shit, he okay?" he pulled into a space and put the car in park, staying inside the car and frowning out the window.

"Yeah, he needs someone to come and get him, though," she said, "He... I dunno, it sounds like he got bopped over the head and dumped in the hospital for no reason at all."

"I just pulled up to the police station," he said, grimacing and looking at the building through his rear view, "If it's an emergency..."

Louis could hear the gears in her head turning, hoping (and fairly confident) that Zoey would be able to work something out. He was eventually rewarded with, "I think I can work something," and she added with confidence that might've been more bravado than sincerity, "I'll keep you updated. Tell Francis I said 'hi' if you find him, okay?"

"I will. You be careful," Louis replied, checking his watch, "I'll call you if I find out anything."

"All right, Louis. Good luck."

"You too."

Louis looked at his phone a moment after he hung up, steeled himself, and got out of the car. Showtime.

Rachel would absolutely kill him if she had any idea what he was doing. Well maybe not kill him, but she wouldn't be happy about it. Having dinner with a teenage girl was a little suspect, but walking into the police station to ask after an ex-con? He wasn't even sure what he was thinking, or what his plan was, but if there was anything he could do, it was this. Louis had charm. He was good with people, he was good looking, and he dressed smartly. People (at least, people who were bikers or veterans) listened to him when he talked.

And he definitely made an impression as he strolled into the station, cellphone in one hand, briefcase in the other, looking for all the world like he had every right and great purpose to be there.

It looked to be a slow night, and someone approached him curiously from behind the reception desk.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah," Louis said, flipping his phone shut and tucking it away. Here went nothing, "I was waiting to have drinks with a friend of mine tonight and he never turned up."

The cop looked him up and down, incredulous. Louis couldn't blame him. He didn't look like the sort of person that hung out with people who got dragged into a police station.

"If you're here to post bail, we need a name."

"Francis."

Raising an eyebrow, the cop shifted through only a few things on the desk, before saying, "He ain't eligible for bail."

"The hell did he do?" Louis persisted, "He was tellin' me that his parole meetings were going fine. Did he miss it yesterday?"

The cop opened his mouth and then closed it, looking down at the file, "That isn't... who_ are_ you, pal?"

"I'm just trying to understand why my friend is in lockup, that's all. Seems kinda weird to me. Like maybe he's being railroaded."

"Take your CSI bullshit or whatever and get out," the cop scowled.

"What was he brought in for? What are the charges?"

Increasingly flustered, the cop hitched his belt and looked around, but the few gathered, curious faces only shook their heads and then quickly dispersed. He was on his own.

"I just do what I'm told," the cop argued, "And he was brought in. The dude has a record. I'm sure it was somethin'!"

"Man, I had two semesters of law and I can tell this isn't right," Louis frowned, flipping his cellphone open again, "I'm calling him a lawyer and then I'm calling the news. This shit is unreal. The man is trying to get his life back together! You can't treat people like animals!"

_All right, Louis, all right, dial it back a notch_. He wasn't going for an Oscar here.

"Whoa, whoa," the cop protested, putting his hands up in alarm, "Don't call anybody, all right? Let me just... I need to get the sergeant. Okay? Can you hold on?"

"Yeah, man, but not all damn night."

The cop hurried off and knocked frantically on the Sarge's door. It opened and he vanished inside it. Five minutes went by. Ten. Twenty. Shit, were they going to call his bluff? He actually did have a lawyer he could call, but it wasn't like he was a close friend. He'd charge, and he'd probably take one look at Francis and turn the case down anyway.

Finally, it was the sergeant who tromped out first, scowling, following by a very reprimanded looking officer. The officer ducked off into the bullpen and the sergeant folded his arms. Louis raised his eyebrows, twiddling his fingers on the phone.

"Follow me," he said, turning and leading Louis around into the back, "I don't know who the hell you are, pal, but we don't need a media shitstorm because of some paperwork fuck up."

The sergeant led him into lockup, pretending not to notice the sleeping guard.

"Back against the wall! Francis, I don't know where you know _this _guy from but he's here for you," he growled as he paged through the keys, coming to stop in front of a cell. Louis stood beside him and couldn't help but grin. Well holy shit, look who it was, in his natural environment no less.

"Man, you stood up an eighteen year old for _this?_" he teased, unable to help himself, "You gotta get your priorities straight."

"What's goin' on sarge?" the guard behind him asked, approaching.

"Get his shit," sarge answered, scowling, "We got no legal right to hold his ass. Cut him loose."

Francis looked up from his stubborn frowning at the floor and did a fast double take. Whatever he was expecting this was not it. He blinked at Louis, a grin stealing across his face.

"You sure took your time," he said good-naturedly, although he still looked utterly surprised.

Francis's cellmate had woken up again, and was staring at Louis like he was from mars. "Man, I ain't never seen a black guy bust a white guy outta prison before," he muttered, before rolling over and going back to sleep.

"Huh, I knew she'd find ya. She was gonna get us back together again if she had ta move mountains to do it." Francis allowed himself to be ushered out by the sergeant. "Bout time someone noticed this was a complete fuck-up," he said pointedly.

There was paperwork to fill out, and eventually Francis got the contents of his pockets back. "It woulda been quicker if you'd just smuggled in some dynamite," he pointed out.

Louis couldn't believe it. Everyone was pretty much exactly how he remembered them, right down to Francis being a loud mouthed jackass. He'd missed the big ugly shithead a lot more than he'd realized.

"You're welcome," he smirked as he led the biker out into the parking lot, "You need a lift home? And you ain't kiddin' about Zoey, that girl doesn't know what the word 'quit' means. I can't believe she was lookin' in _biker bars_ for your ass."

Francis let out a low whistle, "Nice wheels man." Reality definitely agreed with some. "When she showed up I thought I was dreamin'." He glanced sharply at Louis, as if trying to reassure himself that he was still here, "Hell, I still think I'm dreamin'." Francis raised an eyebrow and held up his keys, "What, you think I hitchhiked here?" His bike was where he'd left it, if he'd gotten his phone call he'd have organised getting it taken care of.

He fished his keys out and disarmed his car. Yeah, yeah, it was a police station. He loved his Cadillac. Glancing up at the biker, he grinned again and laughed, slapping him on the back.

"It's great to see you, Francis," he admitted.

He grinned back and nodded, "Yeah, it's good know you actually fucking exist." He paused, "Thanks for busting me out. There's some screwy shit going on here. They had no reason to hold me, somehow I even made it to my last parole meeting even though at the time everythin' had gone to hell." He shook his head, "No phone call, no nothin'. I hope Zoey wasn't too worried."

"She spent about two minutes worrying and then she started figurin' shit out," Louis smirked, "You know how she is. Type A runs in her family, I guess. She's actually trying to work out what happened to Bill. He was supposed to show up for our little reunion dinner and missed out. Kinda weird how that happened, huh?"

Louis leaned on his car, twirling his keyring on one finger, "Some whack ass shit is _definitely_ goin' on man. Try and remember as much as you can, from around the time we were killin' zombies. Once we figure out what happened to Bill we can try gettin' together again, see if we can make any of this add up. You think... man this sounds paranoid, but do you think you're safe to go back to your place?"

He felt weird just... splitting up. Things got screwy when they split up. How he might explain some giant white dude in his apartment to Rachel, though, was a mystery to him. One thing at a time.

Francis frowned, making an effort at the very least to use his brain. "You're right," he said seriously. "I don't know that it is safe. I'm gonna go and see if I can get my hands on some guns. That's good thinkin' Louis."

Louis grimaced. That wasn't the reaction he was hoping for, even if it was sort of to be expected.

"I meant... I mean, if you need a place to stay," Louis offered, spreading his hands a little. If Francis brought a shotgun into his apartment... he just didn't even know.

"You're really was taking this shit seriously. I appreciate the offer, man, but I don't reckon I'd suit your decor." He shrugged, "I'll be fine. Whadda they gonna do at my apartment that they can't do at your apartment?".

"All right man," he said, "Just be careful, all right? Don't do anything to get your ass back in there," he pointed at the police station behind them, and then remembered something, "I'll give you my number. And Bill's. I'll check in with Miss Thing and let her know you're fine so she doesn't go to county tomorrow and tries to find you."

Louis opened up his car and dug out paper and a pen, his hand writing neat, concise and legible. He wrote down his home phone and his cell, just to be safe.

Francis took the piece of paper, folded it carefully, and put it away in the pocket of his jeans. "You know, if we all manage to get together-" he stopped himself. "Zoey's gonna be real happy. For some reason or other she missed us." He nodded and turned to his bike, "You watch yourself too, Louis. I don't wanna have to bail _you_ outta jail."

"That'll be the day," Louis said, though he smiled appreciatively, "Drive safe."

It was kind of a corny thing to say, but he'd been spending more time around IT nerds than hardass bikers lately.


	10. Chapter 10

Every moment she agonized over how she was going to get to Mercy hospital was a moment too long, and she distracted herself by going into her parents room and raiding her father's wardrobe. She hoped Bill liked Gucci because her dad sure did. Stuffing some underwear, pants, shoes and a shirt into her bag, she scurried back to her room and paged through the numbers in her phone. Her mother was at some conference, and her father was out of town. Even though her father wouldn't be home until tomorrow, her mother would be tonight. The next few hours at the _most_. If she did anything, she'd have to do it quickly.

The idea to take her father's Bentley crossed her mind, but Zoey immediately discarded the idea. Just the _thought_ of scratches made her cringe. There was absolutely no way she'd get away with that so... so nevermind.

Amanda was worried about her. She hadn't been terribly thrilled with Francis, or the fact that Zoey seemed perfectly at ease with him, and she suspected _things_. The _wrong_ things, in Zoey's opinion, but how could she possibly suspect the truth? The truth was bonkers.

Josh. She could call Josh. He had a crush on her, and even though she had zero interest in him, she could exploit it to her purposes. And probably ruin his crush. Two birds with one stone. Zoey grimaced, and dialed his number.

"Hey, Josh. Yeah, it's Zoey," she said, pacing around the foyer, sneakers squeaking on the immaculate floor, "Yeah, hey, I know it's kind of late but could you do me a huge favor? Huge, _huge_ favor. I'd love you forever. Yeah," she laughed nervously, "It's this uh, online scavenger hunt thing I'm doing. I'll send you the link later, it's kind of on a deadline. Yeah. The last thing I need is at Mercy hospital."

Zoey cringed and waited, her expression hopeful. Was he going to buy it?

"You won't even believe it," she said quickly, "Just... you drop me off and wait in the parking lot, okay? And when I come out it'll be a surprise. Yeah. Uh huh. See you soon, okay? I'm on a deadline! Don't forget!"

He'd bought it. Hook, line and sinker. He probably thought she was performing some kind of nerdy come on, but she'd deal with that later.

She waited out on the front line, jogging to the road to meet him when he drove up. Sorry about the pretentious ricer, Bill, but desperate times.

"So come on, give me a hint," Josh grinned after they'd gotten on the expressway. He was a good looking boy, she supposed. Josh was on the swim team and smiled easily, and he was aiming said smile at her now. Zoey tried not to feel too guilty about using him like this.

"It's a surprise," she insisted, hugging her bag to her chest and willing him to drive faster. He'd souped the stupid thing up, why was he driving the speed limit!

"Are you gonna play some gross prank on me?" he guessed, "Like throw a human foot in the back seat or something?"

"Ew, Josh, no," she protested, laughing at the idea, "Just... that exit there. Take that one. It's a shortcut."

He tried to guess all the way to Mercy, and she was about ready to kill him when he tried to stall her in the parking lot. Zoey pointed him into the parking lot and looked up the building, getting a weird feeling about the place. Huh. The top floors weren't under construction anymore.

The hospital was a busy place, and Zoey knew they probably didn't welcome people wandering around, but she walked purposefully towards the stairwell. She didn't rush up the stairs, forcing herself to take an even pace and wear a somber expression. Yep, she was just visiting a very sick family member. Maybe she'd packed an overnight bag and that's why her book bag was bulging. Shit she hoped nothing had happened to Bill. It had taken her way too damn long to get here.

Zoey wasn't sure what her game plan was, exactly. She'd heard his name over the PA system, and she was getting more and more nervous. At least that meant they hadn't found him. What if Josh's dumb flirting had screwed the evac? She wasn't going to think about it. Focus. She had to focus. Doubtful that he was in the ICU, so that meant these next few floors were the most likely. Unless they weren't. Every time she rounded a set of stairs she tried to force herself not to skirt around it like... well, like a zombie was going to be there.

"Any news doctor?" a woman's voice, sounding hopeful.

"Well, err." She froze as she started to pass the door that opened up onto the fifth floor, positive she'd heard his voice. "He could be a hell of a lot worse." Was she too late? Was he arguing with the people looking for him? Fuck, she'd better not just stand around in the stairwell like a slack-jawed idiot then.

Forcing herself to keep casual, she opened the door, head down and dejected, and dared to look up through her hair. There was a young man in the bed closest to the door, and a worried looking woman, presumably his mother, was sitting next to the bed. And a doctor in scrubs was reading the chart. A doctor rather in need of a haircut. In spite of herself, she inhaled sharply as she recognised that posture and fitted it perfectly with the gruff voice she heard earlier. _What_ was he _wearing!_ Unbidden, a grin broke out over her face, but she swallowed the urge to fling herself at him. This was a serious evac, here, not a party. Zoey pretended to cough and fuss with her bag, hoping he'd notice her.

It worked. He turned and with only amusement in his eyes to give him away, frowned sternly at Zoey. "Ma'm, are you lost? I'm afraid all visitors have to go through reception." He stepped away from the end of the bed, replacing the chart, and strode over to her. "I'm sorry, but we can't have unauthorised persons just wandering around, this is a hospital you know." Now that his back was to the rest of the room, he was grinning.

He ushered her back towards the stairs, "Bet you never guessed I went to medical school, Louis," he said flippantly.

For Francis, she'd bawled in relief. Louis, she'd nearly lifted off his feet she'd hugged him so hard. The second the door to the stairwell closer she embraced Bill tightly and planted a wet one on his whiskery cheek. It was Bill! And he was in _disguise_, no less.

"I brought you a change of clothes," she said, withdrawing from her enthusiastic greeting and grinning broadly at him, "But I guess you already took care of that. Our ride is waiting downstairs, by the way, so I guess we should get going before whoever is looking for you finds you."

Zoey tried to put a more serious expression on her face but she just couldn't. Seeing Bill perfectly fine after worrying so much after his call was a_ great_ relief. And though she wouldn't admit it out loud, she was very proud to be the one to spring him from the hospital.

Bill hugged her back, raising his eyebrows in surprise when she kissed him. "I missed you too, Zoey." He patted her on the head affectionately, and nodded in approval, "You made good time, kid. Any longer and they'd have started asking me to cure folks." He glanced back at the door behind them and started walking down the stairs, at quite a reasonable speed. "So what happened to Louis?" he asked over his shoulder. "Don't tell me he's gone AWOL too, or did he give you a lift in?"

"He's at the police station checking for Francis," she told him, keeping up, glancing over her shoulder occasionally, "He said he'd call once he'd checked things out. I uh, got a lift from a friend. He thinks I'm pulling a prank on him so... yeah."

Zoey grimaced. All right, not the most daring rescue, but she was working with the resources she had.

"Maybe I should call him now," she mused, pulling her cellphone out. No bars in the stairwell. Damn.

Bill shook his head, "Let's get outta here first. They're still looking for me." Whoever 'they' were. He paused on the second to last flight of stairs and unhooked the stethoscope from around his neck. He couldn't really give back the clothes, but it wasn't like Bill to steal from a hospital if he could help it. He draped it over the banister.

Open. Busy foyer, even at this time of night. Bill glanced at Zoey and casually started walking.

Zoey kept it casual as well, fighting the urge to bolt for it. It was busy and there was nothing at all strange about either of them, so there was no sense drawing attention by rushing. She imagined rushing only drew extra attention in a place like this.

Feeling the cool night air greet them bolstered her confidence and she started to walk a bit quicker, scanning the lot for headlights. Josh had obnoxious halogens, and they were fairly easy to spot. Just in case he hadn't noticed her, she hopped up once and waved at him, hoping he'd drive to meet them instead of just sitting there like an idiot.

He sat there like an idiot.

"Goddammit," she muttered, moving towards the back doors. Zoey pulled them open, letting Bill take shotgun, and slid into the back.

"Uh, Zoey?" Josh said warily, looking at Bill with a very perplexed expression, "What uh, what were you supposed to get from the hospital?"

"A brain surgeon," she said, "Follow his directions okay?"

She might have laughed if it weren't for the fact that every minute Josh sat there staring, they might get busted by... by whoever. Somebody. She didn't know who was after them, but it was clear they'd thrown a wrench into their meeting.

"Move it, soldier!" Bill barked; he didn't look particularly impressed by Zoey's choice of chauffeur. He rattled off directions to his apartment block and expected that Josh would be capable of following them without trouble. He glanced over his shoulder at Zoey, "Any luck with Louis?" he asked.

Though she was somewhat concerned that Josh might actually shit himself as Bill growled at him, she was quickly pulled back to the now and flipped her phone open.

"I'll check now," she said, drumming her fingers idly on the seat as it rang, "Hey! Leaving the hospital now. Yep. Er, a friend of mine," Zoey flicked a look at Josh, who was giving her pleading looks in the rear view mirror. She ignored it for now, "So what about Francis? Oh, he was!" she burst out laughing, "_Seriously!_ I wish I could've seen that in person. High five. Yeah. Definitely tomorrow. Early, too, so nobody else gets kidnapped."

Zoey gave Bill a thumbs up, just in case he hadn't guessed from her conversation that things were on the up and up.

Bill returned the gesture with a relieved smile. "Yeah I think that's a good idea," he said, referring to her last comment. "Maybe somewhere not too public."

He pointed out his building to Josh, "Thanks, kid." He glanced back at Zoey, "You did good, now get home before you're missed. Don't worry about me, I won't be caught again." He smiled proudly; "You haven't changed a bit, kid. Given Francis was apparently back in jail, I guess he hasn't changed much either."

"Yessir," Josh mumbled, obviously not too sure why he was deferring to the... the hardass brain surgeon.

"Okay," Zoey smiled, getting out of the car when Bill did. "Yeah Louis, someplace private. Your place, huh? Could you email me the directions so I can tell a cabbie? And do you want to call Francis or should I?"

Or maybe Bill wanted to. There was an idea. She grinned a little, adding, "Maybe Bill can."

Bill looked at her and shrugged, sure why not? He waited for Zoey to finish her phone call, although if questioned he'd undoubtedly deny he was expecting another hug from her.

"If I get hugged by the others I'm going to send _them_ to the hospital," he said without any real annoyance.

"I'd pay at _least_ twenty dollars to watch Francis hug you," she said, "Er, bye Louis. See you tomorrow."

She flipped her phone shut and hugged Bill again, smiling afterward and hopping into the front passenger's seat, "Night, Bill."

Though she would've much preferred to make coffee and grill Bill all night, they could get into that tomorrow morning. Right now she had to hope her mother was still out late, though the fact that she was coming in late with Josh might cushion whatever her initial objections might be. Poor Josh.


	11. Chapter 11

Louis answered his door almost before Bill had finished knocking, smiling broadly at the two men in front of him. After the daring double rescue of the day before, a flurry of phone calls had got everyone up to speed, and it was decided that Louis's apartment was the best equipped for a reunion. Francis looked rather out of place in his upscale apartment, but he didn't mind at all. He looked behind them as they came inside, frowning a little as he closed the door.

"Zoey not with you?" he asked, checking his phone for the time. She still had a few minutes, he supposed, but seeing as she seemed to keep turning up to these meetings early, it worried him that she wasn't here yet. The traffic report had been clear, but maybe her cabbie was a new guy or she'd gotten held up by something. He reminded himself not to worry, in any case. Zoey was a very capable young woman, and she had her cellphone on her. She'd have called if things had gone wrong.

"I'm gonna check up on her," Louis said, even as he'd finished assuring himself everything was fine, "Maybe her cab is stuck in traffic."

He dialed her number and waited. And waited. And got her voicemail.

"Uh, hey Zoey," he said, shaking his head at the others so they knew he wasn't talking to her, "It's Louis. Guys are all here, just waiting on you. Call when you get this, okay? Bye."

Louis hung up, somewhat needlessly saying, "Got her voicemail," before pausing and adding, "Am I being paranoid or do you think something happened to her? Cause you know how gung-ho she is. I thought she'd turn up before sunrise."

He had an awful feeling in his stomach all of the sudden. When he'd been with just Francis, or just Bill, it'd been just plain good to see them. With three of them here, though, Zoey's absence was glaringly noticeable. She was their unspoken darling, and the fact that they were all standing here like assholes while she was... _wherever_ she was... made him feel uneasy.

Bill frowned, thinking that maybe she'd been gotten at the way he'd been. But she'd had plenty of warning, given what had happened to Francis and himself, and she wasn't a pushover.

"Try the internet? Maybe one of her friends can help," he suggested.

"I don't think her friends think much of us," Francis commented.

"I can see why they wouldn't approve of you." Bill looked thoughtful, "and they had proof of your existence plastered all over that site."

"It's not like I asked them to take that damn picture." His habitual scowl deepened.

"I'm not accusing you, so simmer down, Francis." Was he always looking for a fight?

Even though it was clear Francis was getting irritated, Louis couldn't help but smirk a little.

"You're pretty famous in her circle of friends, man," he nodded at Francis, "Zoey's mystery date. It's worth a look, though. If anything happened to her I'm sure they'd all post about it on the internet."

He motioned them over to his computer, gesturing to some chairs they could pull up before pulling a note off of his monitor, wriggling his mouse to wake the computer up. A reminder to TiVo Project Runway for Rachel. Right. He wouldn't forget to do that. Louis set the note aside and hopped on the internet, disappointed to note that she hadn't updated her own page. He showed Francis the uproar his picture had caused first, partly to watch the biker squirm a little, but mostly to see if there was any clue as to which of her friends he ought to contact. Most of the comments were relatively derogatory in regards to 'that old guy'. Near the bottom, a young man named Josh had commented on Zoey's apparent old guy fetish. Louis shook his head, clicking through her friends. It was a little weird how disruptive even one of them was to her life. Everything had seemed perfectly natural, _before_.

"Okay, Amanda is her best friend," Louis eventually determined, "That was her roommate and stuff, so let's... uh oh."

Amanda's status was set too an apology with a frowny face. The comments on it reflected her friends assuring her she did the right thing.

"Maybe plain old reality got Zoey in trouble," he said, glancing at the others. Reality was a lot harder to deal with. Her parents probably wouldn't react real well to the three of them showing up, and he could just see some upper class super-dad blowing his top when he saw a picture of his sweet little girl on the back of a motorcycle with Francis. Hell, Zoey had told him how Francis had dropped her off at her house not too long ago. She was probably being shipped off to military school as they spoke.

Bill breathed a sigh of relief, "Well at least we know she ain't goin' anywhere for a while, and she's in one piece."

Francis just looked annoyed. "They're not gonna let her out for weeks. I don't reckon we can visit, neither."

"Not unless you want to go back to lockup," Louis said dryly, shaking his head.

* * *

Rachel was on her lunch break when her phone rang and she drew it out eagerly. She'd been expecting a call from Louis, but so far he'd been quiet. Sometimes he got distracted, which she usually understood, but lately he'd been so distant and strange. She couldn't explain it, he just felt different. Not that she minded that he'd started working out, of course, but he didn't even seem to want to do it to be healthy. It had worried her at first, but all that had come of it was Louis being more fit. She'd even convinced him to come to Yoga with her a few times. No, it was the firing range that worried her now. Why such a sweet man would want to fire a gun three times a week confounded her.

The caller ID was blank and she frowned, high heels clicking to a halt as she considered leaving it be. Probably a telemarketer. Still... it might be someone else...

She answered it with a polite, "Hello?" and continued onwards to the little cafe she usually ate lunch at. Rachel had been hoping Louis would offer to join her, but maybe he was working extra hard today.

"Ma'm, this is John Slater. I need to get a message to Louis. It's important."

* * *

"Louis, are you here?" Rachel called out as she pushed the door open, a pensive expression on her face. She gasped as she got a good look at the people in the lounge room. Bill from the other night was here, which was already a little strange considering how early it was, but there was some big... _thug_ with them as well. Was he being robbed! Rachel started to reach into her purse for her mace when Louis finally came to his senses - he'd just been staring at her in shock.

"Baby, you... you uh, didn't call," he said, coming to stand in front of Bill and the thug like he could hide them from view, even putting his hands on his hips.

"I just had a _very _confusing phone call, Louis," she told him, a slight edge of hysteria in her voice, "And you had _better_ start talking! _What_ are these people_ doing_ here?"

"They're friends of mine," he responded, putting up his hands in defense when she shook her phone at him.

"Who's John Slater? Why was he telling me about... about government experiments!"

Louis blinked rapidly, as though stunned to hear what she'd just said.

"The boat guy?" he asked, looking confused.

"_Boat guy?_" Rachel repeated, folding her arms and shaking her head, "I _don't_ understand Louis. And I thought _that_ was Pete's dad!"

"Uh," Louis grimaced, "Well, it's not."

"_Obviously_."

"Baby, I'm sorry, I just don't know how to explain this," Louis said helplessly, "If... I don't think you'd believe me if I told you. Tell me what that guy on the phone-"

"Louis, if you don't tell me the truth_ right now_, I'm just going to assume you've lost your mind and have started taking in stray white people."

Apparently unable to help himself, Louis let out a weird chuckle at the idea, though he immediately regretted it.

Francis and Bill had nodded politely when she entered and then stayed the hell away. Rachel didn't look like the kind of woman either wanted to upset. Louis could do that on his own.

"Well," he began, shifting to the side a little, "You already met Bill. This is Francis. They're friends of mine from... from the zombie apocalypse that only we remember."

He cringed, but Rachel only frowned down at her phone a moment, brow knitting together. John Slater had said some very bizarre things to her, things she'd been more than a little reluctant to take seriously, but...

"That's crazy," she protested, but there wasn't much fire in her voice anymore, "How... that doesn't... that's only in _movies_."

Louis approached her, cautious, and put his hands on her shoulders, "I know it's crazy, baby, but that's where I know these guys from. Did... did John Slater tell you something about it?"

"He has a message for you," she said, "He... Louis, I need to sit down."

"Sure baby," he said, steering her to the couch and raising his eyebrows at Bill and Francis.

"He said that you and...others," she flicked her gaze to the other two for a moment, "were forced to take part in a government simulation without your consent."

"Ah ha!" Francis grinned, "I knew it was the government's fault. I hate those guys."

Louis sat down next to her, keeping one arm around her shoulders, processing what she'd said. Well, apparently Francis had known all along, but he was a bit shocked.

"If... did he say anything else? Why did he call you?" he wondered, frowning. The guy could have at least called one of them about it, but in a way, it was a blessing. Otherwise, he wasn't sure how he would've told Rachel about this in a way she'd actually believe.

"He said your phone was being monitored! I don't understand."

"I reckon they're watchin' Zoey's netspace too," Bill said. "That's how they figured out we were trying to meet up."

Quiet for some time, Louis thought things over, trying to get it all to make sense. It seemed a little over the top in some regard, to be involved in some kind of government conspiracy, or experiment, or _whatever_, but was it any crazier than thinking he'd fought zombies for a few weeks?

"Don't suppose he left a number we could call him back on?" he asked helplessly.

"Is this why you've been acting so strange, Louis?" she asked in return, concern on her face. He nodded a little.

"Didn't think it was that obvious. Sorry, baby, about... well, for lying to you about all of this."

"I don't think I would have believed you," she admitted, eyeballing the others a little, "Who's Zoey? One of your other friends?"

Louis nodded. She was taking all of this like a champ. He knew he loved her for a reason, and favoured her with a light and encouraging kiss on the temple. Maybe she could help them, now. Four heads were better than three, after all.

"So why'd he call in the first place?" Francis asked with a shrug. "Just reassure us that we weren't mad, just the victims of government experiments?" It was easy to make fun of that sort of thing when it was on television. 'The Government Made Me Fight Zombies'.

"He said he felt guilty about it, and that you deserved some compensation." She frowned angrily, "How about some counselling while they're at it?"

Francis rubbed his hands together, "All right, compensation. I like the sound of that." Bill just shook his head dubiously. One phone call wasn't exactly a guarantee.

"Did he mention how we would be able to get any kind of compensation?" Louis frowned, "I don't want compensation, really, I want _answers_."

It wasn't right that Zoey wasn't here, either. She ought to have a say in all of this. Hell, she probably deserved the most compensation out of all of them considering how much backlash she appeared to be suffering as a result. Eighteen was a bit young to be checking corners and jumping at loud noises.

"He said he wasn't supposed to be calling you. He didn't leave a number, but he did give the address of some office." She almost managed a smile, "He uh...seemed pretty confident you'd be able to get what you wanted."

"An address is a start," Louis said, returning her tentative smile with a much firmer one. Well, if they got any kind of big compensation, maybe they could have the wedding sooner. Positive thinking. Assuming the government wasn't planning on releasing some horrible virus out onto the public. That seemed a little _too_ paranoid, though.

"Where_ is_ your other friend?" Rachel asked.

"She's... she got in trouble for hanging out with Francis," Louis said, glancing at the biker to let him know he was joking. Sort of.

"Got in trouble?" she frowned, "Why?"

"She's eighteen, still living with her parents for college."

Rachel didn't quite know what to make of _that_.

"Anyway, where is this place?" he wondered, trying to change the subject, "Is it here in Pennsylvania?"

"Yes, in the city even. I wrote it down." She pulled out her blackberry and showed Louis the address. "Are you really going to contact them?" she asked, looking worried. "Louis, we are going to sit down, sometime very soon, and you are going to tell me _everything_."

"I will baby, every little detail," Louis swore, taking one of her hands and squeezing it, "I promise, okay?"

Bill didn't like the fact that Zoey was excluded from all of this, but on the other hand. "We might want to talk to 'em soon. Before they know we're comin'. They haven't been real keen on talking to us up til now."

"We kick the door in and demand our money, I like it."

"Not quite, Francis. Slater didn't exactly tell us everything, even assuming he knows it."

Louis nodded at Bill, wondering if they should just head downtown now, get it started before the government started sending ninjas after them or some crap. After zombies, though, he didn't think a ninja would scare him all that much.

"Maybe we can get them to talk to Zoey's parents," he shrugged, standing up, "Her dad seem like a reasonable guy when you met him, Francis?"

"I...err." Francis shook his head.

"_You_ aren't going to tell some poor girls parents that she was in some kind of crazy zombie experiment, Louis," Rachel scolded, "Just... go to that office and get things sorted out. I'm calling in to work."

"That sounds like a good idea," Bill said, "And Francis, keep your mouth shut."


	12. Chapter 12

After a brief discussion Louis piled in the car beside Bill, and they drove to the city with Francis lane-splitting beside them, making a point of getting ahead at every set of lights. Louis had the address and a Navman, so the biker couldn't leave them for dust. Every so often he'd drift back to make sure they were still all going the same way.

They'd been directed to a huge complex of government offices near the courthouse. More than a dozen different departments and various other vaguely official bodies had offices here. It was anonymous and sprawling. And the parking was expensive. Bill frowned as he took his ticket, wondering if he should have told Louis to drive. Francis had found a less official space and parked there, and they met up in the concrete square in front of the main building.

"I don't suppose that gadget'll direct us to the right door," Bill said, gazing at the towering directory that confronted everyone stepping through the automatic doors. Only Louis looked even vaguely like he belonged. There were no services available here, and everyone who walked around them was wearing the same office wear, or a delivery uniform.

"Nah," Louis said, though he was pretty sure Bill was just kidding. He looked at the massive directory, daunted, wondering just how they'd phrase their department. Whatever it was. The idea that they'd have to get it figured out pretty soon seemed like a good one - they obviously didn't belong here, and if they didn't look purposeful soon, they'd probably be politely asked to leave. Couldn't Francis have at least worn a nice shirt or something?

"I hope Slater was right," Francis said darkly, "I don't really think this is the sorta place it would look good on my record to be chucked out from."

Bill was scanning the directory fairly intently, and eventually he pointed about two-thirds of the way up, "Office of Census and Statistical Data Management. That's what Slater told us."

"What the fuck does that have to do with zombies?" Francis asked dubiously.

"Let's find out." Bill was already making his way to the elevators. If Francis complained, there were stairs right there.

Stepping onto the elevator was a bit nerve wracking, and Louis smiled nervously at an office worker and a man in a brown UPS outfit, parcel tucked under his arm. Yup, just a couple of guys taking the elevator. The worker raised an eyebrow at them, sipping a coffee, but seemed disinclined to comment, offering Louis a polite nod and looking straight ahead. The UPS man seemed unconcerned, checking the parcel over, shifting some paperwork.

When they found the appropriate floor they exited the lift with some relief, and with the unspoken efficiency of seasoned zombie-invasion survivors. The floor was probably identical in appearance and layout to a dozen floors above and below them. A much shorter directory pointed them down a hallway, and Bill lead the way.

"I hope they're not all at lunch," Francis said.

"Must you make problems when there aren't any?"

"Just let me and Bill do the talking, Francis," Louis said warily. Bill had already warned him earlier, but it bore repeating. Francis' big mouth worked fine for alerting the group to trouble, but it probably wouldn't work well against government employees. And he kept feeling like they were _missing_ something. Bill or Francis on point, and usually himself and Zoey watched their flanks. Hopefully Zoey wouldn't be in trouble for too long. It was too weird without her.

Francis rolled his eyes. Why did everyone keep saying that?

He kept expecting to get a rifle shoved in his face for some reason. Somehow, though, that wasn't quite as bad as the prospect of being ambushed by zombies.

The door they found themselves in front of, was identical to every other door they'd passed in the building, Bill didn't bother knocking, instead trying the handle. There was a card swipe next to it, so he was mildly surprised when it opened easily. Inside there wasn't even a receptionist, just a open-plan office, and at their entrance heads were starting to pop up over the desk dividers.

"Can I help you?" Eventually someone emerged from the warren of desks and approached them. He was dressed in a manner similar to Louis, he blinked at them owlishly. Most of the heads disappeared, but there was still the sense that they were being intently listened to.

"I'm Bill Overbeck, and I believe you boys might be able to answer some of our questions."

As soon as Bill mentioned his name a murmur ran around the room, and the heads reappeared.

"Huh, looks like we're famous," Francis observed, ignoring Bill's censorious look.

"Jesus, you're kidding." Their interrogator looked at them with wide eyes. "Uhh, we can't- I'll try and get hold of our director."

"The director?" someone asked dubiously.

"It's gonna get kicked up to him eventually," he replied, dialling furiously. "Uh," he waited, obviously on hold, "we'll try and set up a conference. He's at our central facility."

"And where's that?" Bill asked. He didn't get a response. There appeared to be some difficulty getting hold of this mysterious director, as the phone call dragged on, apparently past a series of receptionists. Bill's name was mentioned several times, as if it were a magic password. Francis shrugged and leaned against the wall, arms folded. Well, this had been exciting so far.

They were approached in a rather awestruck manner by a few of the other workers, and offered their choice of water or coffee, or they could probably pop down to the cafe and grab them a sandwich or something. Francis's instinct was to say yes to all of them, but there was always a chance they'd be poisoned and kidnapped again or something so he shook his head. "Now I know how the animals in the zoo feel," he muttered.

Louis wasn't worried about being poisoned, too distracted by the reactions going on around them, and he very graciously asked for a coffee. He'd already drank about half a pot this morning waiting for the others to show up, but what the hell, right? They were being stared at like they were notorious celebrities. He hadn't brought a pen for autographs though. The thought threatened to slip an inappropriate chuckle past his throat and he swallowed it, instead shaking his head and looking between Bill and Francis.

"Guess this is the right place," he said needlessly, accepting his coffee with a very polite 'Thank you'.

Bill wasn't saying anything until they were given some more information. Eventually, the phone call ended, and they were approached again. "They're going to set up a video conference," he explained with an air of faint surprise. "Uhm, follow me, it shouldn't be long, barring technical difficulties." He tried to smile but just looked worried. Presumably the director hadn't been too happy to hear from him.

"Video conference?" Louis repeated quietly, glancing at the others. Out of habit he adjusted his tie, resisting the near constant urge to keep looking at the others, to reassure himself that they were there and that this was actually happening.

They were lead out of the office and down the hall to a conference room. Their guide fussed around with the various bits of technology for a while. There was a big polished table in the middle of the room, and he ushered them into chairs. Francis put his feet up on the table. Bill just shook his head, under the circumstances he understood the desire to rebel a bit, and despite a disapproving look, it didn't look like the biker was going to get them thrown out. Yet.

"Um. It will be a few minutes, but everything's ready on this end." The screen on the wall opposite them was blank, but powered.

"Can they see us?" Bill asked.

"Only when they connect, and you'll be able to see them too."

Francis just rolled his eyes. Yeah right.

Louis took in the room. It was somewhat understated, but it was clear whatever this department actually did, it was well funded. No matter how far his eyes or his thoughts strayed, however, they kept snapping back to the screen, wondering who it was they'd be confronted with. More and more questions kept building up in his mind, and he was starting to wish he'd brought a notepad and a pen to write them all down on. He'd kick himself later if he forgot something important. Assuming whoever it was they were going to talk to was even going to answer any questions.

Zoey would've gotten a kick out of this. She probably would've had just the right movie quote, too. Maybe from the Matrix. That seemed apt, at this stage.

The screen flickered, and the word 'Connecting...' flashed up.

"Well, good luck." With a nervous smile, their guide left them alone.

"Do you think they'll miss any of this stuff?" Francis asked, looking around at the various electronic equipment.

"There're cameras all over the place, man," Louis said under his breath, shooting Francis a look, "I wouldn't risk it."

"Francis..." Whatever Bill was about to say, he quickly forgot it when the screen flickered on. Unsurprisingly, they were confronted by a man in a suit, perhaps less predictably, he had company; a woman with a granite expression and 'lawyer' written all over her stony, yet beautifully presented features, and a middle-aged man much like the ones they'd just met in the office down the hall. Of the three, it was only the latter who smiled, although he quickly suppressed it.

Louis drummed his fingers on the table, feeling a bit like he was back at work, and somehow it was going to be his fault that the servers had crashed. It wasn't a good feeling and he sat up a little straighter, silently imploring Francis to take this a little more seriously than he was.

"Good morning," the engineer said pleasantly. This was more than a little surreal.

"Good morning." The director, if indeed it was he, didn't introduce himself. He didn't appear to be very happy to be there, and he reacted with mild surprise to Louis's greeting. "We're all busy people, so lets try and keep this meeting short," he cast an eye over Francis and Bill, neither of whom gave the impression of being busy people. "I should inform you first off that you are in a restricted area that's not open to the public, and as such you will remain here only as long as is necessary. Any further communications can be made through the front office on the ground floor."

The man on the left rolled his eyes at the little speech.

Normally Louis was the sort of man who smiled and nodded, swallowing whatever his superiors told him and only snapping back later behind their backs. The speech, however, didn't make him want to roll his eyes and he frowned instead.

"Well, hey," he said, tapping the table, "You got Francis thrown in jail, and kidnapped Bill, so you don't get to just... tell us what to do. That shit ain't legal. We got _rights_. I think we deserve some damned answers before you get to start telling us what's restricted and what ain't."

He half expected a trap door to open up underneath him into a shark tank, but when it didn't, he held his ground.

He held up a hand as the lawyer moved forward a fraction, presumably to tell Louis just precisely what would happen to him if he didn't respect the boundaries of the restricted area.

"No one is denying that certain protocols have been broken in this instance. I assure you, all of you, that it was for the greater good, and you will no longer be placed in any danger, or anything of the sort. In fact, we want you to move on with your lives. You three, as well as Miss Monroe, rendered invaluable assistance in a simulation that may save tens of thousands of lives in the future."

He leant back in his chair and the lawyer continued for him. "We've drawn up a confidentiality agreement, one that entitles you to compensation for your continuing cooperation, and discretion in this and all related matters."

Francis took his feet off the table and leant forward in his chair. Louis wasn't quite as interested in 'compensation' and he started to scowl. He didn't want to get paid off, damn it, he wanted _answers_.

"How much compensation?" Francis asked.

"Well hang on," Louis interrupted, "Can we at least ask what the purpose of all that was? I mean, shit, I thought I was losin' my mind. How is givin' an eighteen year old girl PTSD for the greater damned good?"

He didn't care if the others wanted to take the money and run - it probably wasn't enough to be worth shutting up about this.

The director leaned back and nodded at the man to his right, who smiled and launched into an explanation with the enthusiasm of a true expert. "It's an advanced simulator to track the spread of current and future diseases." His voice was very familiar. Slater continued, "We input all the census data and millions upon millions of variables. But we had no way to test if the simulation was accurate, and obviously we couldn't just release a plague and see what happened. So, we had to run some experiments ourselves, with participants who were ignorant of what was going on." He glanced nervously at the director, as if expecting to be reprimanded, and he looked relieved when his boss merely nodded.

"It was not real. But it had to appear that way," he said. "We regret any hardship you may have suffered, and we expect that two million between you annually will be suitable compensation."

"Two _million_." Francis couldn't help himself. "Hell yeah."

Two million dollars _annually_. Louis blinked and leaned back in his chair, raising his eyebrows a little. Split between the four of them, that was... he wouldn't have to work anymore. Rachel either. She could have her dream wedding, and they wouldn't have to keep prolonging their engagement while they sorted their own personal debts from school and cars and all the other little things that ate away at finances. Holy shit, they were pretty serious about them keeping quiet, weren't they?

Part of him was appalled by the idea of accepting monetary compensation without figuring out how they'd been run through a simulator, or why the fuck the government felt the need to run these sorts of tests, or why _him_, even. But five hundred thousand dollars a year was a hell of a lot of money.

"We... Zoey should be here," he said, looking at the others, putting his hands up a little in defense, "Hell, that's enough money to shut _me_ up, but how is she even going to get her compensation when her parents think she's a troubled teen?"

Bill had been silent for the entire conversation, listening and watching and keeping his thoughts to himself. It looked like the cards were on the table now though, and he could see they weren't about to get much more hard information about what had actually, physically happened to them.

"We'll need some copies of these agreements," Bill said eventually.

"We're faxing them through," the lawyer replied. "You are free to seek legal advice yourselves, but I assure you they are watertight."

"I don't doubt it." Bill turned his attention to the others, nodding agreement with Louis, "I reckon once we have these bits of paper, Zoey's folks'll have to hear us out. That's a lot of college tuition right there." And he wanted to see her again; they'd talked on the phone, but their one meeting after the hospital evacuation had been necessarily brief.

"Guess that's where we'll head next," Louis said, shifting in his seat a little, "Where uh, should we send the documents? Once we've signed them?"

Zoey's parents' day was going to get a lot worse before it got better. Maybe they ought to go in Louis' car, to soften the blow.

Yeah, right. Like Francis would ride in his car.


	13. Chapter 13

Zoey was gazing despondently out her window. Her parents were still furious with her, and she wasn't sure what she could do to reason with them. If she told them the truth, they'd have her chucked in psychiatric care, and she was definitely not game for that. Maybe... maybe she ought to seriously consider moving out. Doubtful she'd be able to afford college on her own. Hell, she didn't even have savings. Everything was attached to her parents accounts. What would she do with herself? She didn't really feel like majoring in business or law or anything like that. Though she'd pondered her mother's alma mater, Zoey just didn't know. Maybe she'd enlist, put her more concrete skills to use. At least her room and board would be covered then, though there was that whole _war_ thing going on. Shooting people was a lot different from shooting zombies. Bill'd probably kick her ass if she got within a mile of a recruiter.

She knew she could handle being on her own, and that it wouldn't be easy. She only had a high school diploma, no job experience, and she'd probably have to work a couple jobs to make rent. But at least she'd have her freedom, right? Freedom, as the obnoxious song went, wasn't free.

Maybe one of the guys would let her borrow a couch until she was on her feet. Free rent in exchange for a live-in dishwasher and cook until she had things under control. What other choices did she have here? Agreeing to never see people who meant everything to her just wasn't an option. She sighed heavily and rested her forehead on the glass, putting one hand on the pane, watching her hand heat up the cool glass.

Sometimes she'd hear an engine and perk up a little, but nothing would come of it. Lots of people in her neighborhood had cars, and they had no way of knowing what had happened to her, and Francis probably didn't want to get the cops called on him, so she'd just have to figure this one out on her own.

The sound of a motorcycle engine made Zoey sit up a little straighter, picking her head up off of the window, retracting her hand. More than one guy in their neighborhood had some sort of motorbike, but not one like _that_. But what did she know from engines? It wasn't like she was an expert. It was wishful thinking.

Nope.

It was _Francis_.

Zoey grinned and pulled away from the window, opening the door to her room and peering out. Her parents were discussing something in their room, and she began to creep out quickly, intent on at least waving wildly before she got locked in the basement or whatever it was her parents were planning.

Out front, Louis thought he'd seen someone in the window, but they were gone a moment later. This was a hell of a neighborhood. Rachel wanted a house here, but he'd talked her down a bit, not keen on sinking them into such heavy debt right off the bat.

"Must be a shooting range out back," he joked quietly to Bill. How had someone who lived in a place like_ this_ wound up so tough?

"Christ." Bill shook his head. No wonder Francis hadn't exactly been made welcome. He parked behind Francis, who had already taken off his helmet and was waiting impatiently for them and grinning. The thought of all that money had certainly perked _him_ up no end. Bill wasn't so sure what to make of it. He could think of a few things to do, but it wasn't like he needed money, really.

First things first. He glanced at Louis, "You do the talking." Of the three of them he'd be the least likely to get the door shut in his face. He glanced up at the windows, maybe Zoey already knew they were here.

Louis nodded. He had some idea about how he was going to go about this, though it all depended on how Zoey's parents initially reacted. Them just showing up out of nowhere was kind of jarring, he knew, and they were already pissed at Francis, but... half a million yearly ought to make any parent relax a little.

He stepped up to the front door and knocked firmly, startled when the door opened almost instantly.

"Guys!" Zoey cheered, her grin nearly splitting her face in half, "You're okay!"

"Course we are," Louis grinned back, able to see over Zoey's head into her home, "Glad you are, too. Listen, we got some good news. Your parents home?"

"Zoey!"

There was a blonde woman at the top of the stairs, her scowl hard, and Zoey quickly motioned the three of them in before she could protest.

"Who are these... Thomas! Get out here!" her mother stalked down the stairs severely, glaring at all three of them warningly, "Young lady, you're already on thin ice! Just what on earth is this all about?"

"Mom, please," Zoey implored, "Just hear them out, okay?"

God she hoped Louis had some sort of plan, because they were all going to get thrown out in a second.

Francis waved as Zoey's father emerged from somewhere upstairs. "You again!" Both Bill and Louis shot a glare at the biker. It obviously hadn't occurred to him that Zoey's parents probably had the power of veto over the agreement; he didn't have that quarter of a million yet.

"Calm down!" Bill ordered, in his usual drill-sergeant fashion. "Loius, show 'em the papers." He suspected that a legally binding contract under a government letterhead would probably get through to them faster than trying to talk to them. "We've got some decisions to make, people."

Francis was already making his case for the affirmative, explaining the events of the day to Zoey in a hurried fashion until her father separated them, firmly pulling Zoey back.

Zoey shot a sharp look at her father, more an instinctual reaction to being grabbed than actual aggression, but at least managed not to wrench her arm free. Damn it, why wouldn't they just believe her? Even her mother was glaring at the other three reproachfully, probably thinking about how they were scuffing up her polished floor.

"Look here," Louis said, stepping forward and offering Mr. Monroe the contract. He passed one to Zoey too, offering her an encouraging smile in the face of her troubled scowl. Things'd be okay, she'd see. She didn't look too convinced, skimming the paper over until her eyebrows started to crawl up her forehead, "Have a read before you make any rash decisions, all right?"

"Is this for real?" Zoey said quietly. She could afford her own tuition and her own place with this. And a few other things in the process. And still have money left over. But it was a confidentiality agreement. She didn't know how she felt about being... paid off. There was a lot she wanted to ask them about this, but she didn't know how much she ought to say in front of her already angry parents.

"Just drawn up today," Louis nodded, watching Zoey's parents for a reaction. Mrs. Monroe looked skeptical, bending close to the paper as her husband went over it with her, occasionally flicking a confused look at Louis. Of the three of them, he was the only one who looked like he could draw up a document.

"But what is this a contract _for_?" Mr. Monroe demanded. "I see all this money and a confidentiality clause that's nearly two pages long, and no mention of what this is all about. And who the hell are you anyway?"

Bill took a deep breath, shooting a 'shut-up' glance at Francis, who seemed more interested in looking around admiringly at the evidence of money on display. This was where it got difficult. "We were all drafted for some government run simulations, and it took a bit of prodding before they agreed that we deserved something for our time." Even though they had yet to sign it, Bill was wary of the contract and how much they were allowed to say. Not to mention, any details of these 'simulations' would probably label him as completely insane in the Monroe's eyes.

Francis stopped evaluating the Mercedes in the driveway through the window and frowned as Bill gave his explanation. He didn't like the way all their heroics and skin-of-their-teeth surviving had been wiped away under a bland euphemism. On the other hand. Quarter of a million.

"I don't think we've ever consented to have Zoey take part in some government simulation," Mrs. Monroe said. The document was real enough, but neither her nor her husband were stupid people. There was something they weren't being told.

"I'm eighteen," Zoey reminded her, a twinge of rebellion creeping into her voice, "I'm a legal adult. Nobody needs your consent anymore."

"Zoey," he mother reprimanded, though she didn't flinch for once, "So, what, is that where you met _that?_" she nodded to indicate Francis.

Her hands curled into fists and she jutted her jaw up, "He's Francis. And that's Bill, and that's Louis."

"What sort of simulation was it?" she said, "And don't take that tone with _me_, young lady. Your father and I are trying to look out for you."

"It's classified," Louis shrugged helplessly, "That's sort of the purpose of the document. To keep it classified."

Half a million wasn't as good a bargaining chip to people who had a Mercedes Benz in the driveway, he supposed, but come on. It seemed like they were balking at the idea of their daughter being set for life. Zoey looked a bit like she wanted to slug both of them, but she was keeping, in his mind, uncharacteristically silent with her opinion.

"None of us consented," Bill was starting to get annoyed.

"Yeah," Francis spoke up, "If ya wanna get mad, get mad at them, not us. We didn't ask to be dragged off for weeks on end."

"You should be proud of her," Bill said, having had similar conversations, too many conversations, with families of other veterans. "She held her own against some pretty nasty shit. They won't give her a medal, but she's earned every dime of that money."

Zoey looked like she'd been awarded more than half a million to receive praise from Bill, and her mother looked sideways at both her daughter and her husband, trying to digest all of it.

"I'm going to sign it," the teen announced.

"Well, hang on," her mother frowned, "Thomas, what do you-"

"I'm going to sign it," Zoey repeated, firmly, "This contract doesn't have either of your names on it, it has _mine_."

"Have a little respect-!"

"You don't have any for _me!_" she snapped, angry enough to stamp a foot, "I'm going to take the money, and you can either accept it, or...!" Zoey wavered slightly. Shouting at her parents didn't come naturally to her, "Or you can watch me pack. Because I'm an adult, and I'm signing this contract and moving on with my life."

Her mother looked more than a little furious at the backtalk, looking to Mr. Monroe for some back up. Did he hear what his daughter was saying! Somehow, this was the tattooed man's fault, she was sure of it.

"Zoey, you can't sign a legally-binding contract like that without giving it some serious thought. And you are not thinking straight!" He glared at the other three, who looked nonplussed, none of them having had any experience with rebellious teenagers. "We are going to talk about this like sensible people- without your...without these people. I need to call my lawyer." He shook his head.

Bill nodded, Zoey needed to talk to her folks despite what the others might think. Francis was looking impatient, but he could survive a few more days without his beloved payout - Zoey's family was more important. "Zoey, we haven't made any decisions yet either. Think about this before leaping in, these people mean business." He didn't need to remind her what had nearly happened to him and Francis.

"Fine, call your lawyer," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest. Bill's cautioning did soothe her slightly, but honestly, half a million would keep her life as normal as she could hope for, so long as she could talk to the others about what had happened occasionally, "I'm not grounded anymore, though."

"Like hell you're not," her mother said, "You need to go and cool off a bit. And I don't think your... _friends_ should come by unannounced again."

Zoey's mind was already made up, really. If she was going to be kind of screwed up for the rest of her life because of some weird simulation, why shouldn't she get paid for it? Her parents seemed convinced that she wasn't prepared for the harsh realities of life, but really, did it get any harsher than eating asparagus from a tin because there was nothing else to eat?

"Would it be all right if we contacted her by phone?" Louis asked politely, "Since she has a say in this contract, I think it's only fair we're able to contact her."

Mrs. Monroe hesitated, but nodded a little.

It looked like the conversation was over, and Zoey's parents couldn't hide their relief as they said their goodbyes to her. "You can get some replacement wheels for your stolen car," Francis suggested with a grin. He didn't mean another Prius.

Once they were outside, Louis exhaled and shook his head, raising his eyebrows at the others.

"Guess we know where she gets it from," he said quietly. Both her parents were complete hardasses. Louis checked his watch and pulled out his phone, "You mind takin' me home, Bill? I gotta let Rachel know what's going on. We got some stuff to talk about."

Inside, Zoey felt slightly less confident without her boys at her back, but she was still resolute. Even if she wasn't one hundred percent sure on signing some ominous government contract, if the others were for it, she would sign it. They'd all earned the money, and if it took moving out to earn some sort of respect from her parents... well. At least she'd be all right if she was disowned, right? They were probably thinking she was going to quit school and do something stupid, but really, being able to lead a relatively normal life _and_ still have contact with the guys was all she wanted.

"They're good people," she said immediately, before her parents could add anything more disparaging, "Even Francis."


	14. Chapter 14

Zoey sifted through her mail as she slipped into her apartment, shoving the door shut behind her and snapping the latch closed with an elbow. Most of it was invoices of the bills she had on auto debit and she shuffled them to the back. Junk mail. And an invitation.

A _wedding_ invitation. Zoey grinned and sat down on her couch, opening it eagerly. She'd been waiting for this invite for a little while. It was lovely, too, very elegant, and it was fun to have an excuse to dress up.

She shifted her jaw a little, wondering why Louis had put a 'plus one' option on her RSVP. Zoey hadn't been on a date since before they'd been put through the simulator. Oh well. No shame in going solo. She was going to go no matter what. Louis and Rachel had definitely earned their big day. Being assured half a million dollars a year probably helped smooth things out rather nicely.

Zoey filled out the little card, choosing what meal she wanted from the caterer, and got up to place the RSVP on her desk so she'd remember to mail it out in the morning. Not long after, she glanced at the clock and picked up her phone, dialing up Francis, cradling the phone between her shoulder and her head as she walked into the kitchen. She had to know if he was going to wear a suit. Maybe she'd make a deal with him – she'd wear a dress instead of a dressy pantsuit if he wore a suit to the wedding. That seemed like a pretty fair trade.

God, he'd look completely ridiculous in a suit. The thought brought a large grin to her face and she hoped he hadn't already stepped out for the night. And maybe she could weasel the bachelor party details out of him. She'd gotten a courtesy invite to the bachelorette party, but she wasn't so sure she ought to actually accept. Rachel was a great lady, but didn't really strike Zoey as the party animal type. Zoey closed the fridge and leaned on the counter, glancing at the calendar. Oh, right. She was going over to Bill's tonight anyway to show off what she'd learned this week in culinary school. Hopefully he liked curry. Maybe Francis'd join them.

Francis was where he usually was when he wasn't out riding his bikes, which was floating in his pool with a sixpack at his elbow watching tv. He'd carefully put away a few grand in cash hidden down behind a pile of clothes in his closet, figuring he'd run out of money somewhere around December, but that his savings should see him through until they next payout.

He dripped water across his floor as he went to answer the phone. He could guess what it was about.

"Hey Zoey, I see Louis didn't take my advice." Jeeze, a wedding.

Zoey laughed and shook her head, the sounds of her going through her cabinets accompanying her voice as she grabbed the ingredients she'd need for dinner.

"Not _everyone_ is allergic to commitment, Francis," she reminded him with a smirk, "You're going, right?"

"Do I _have_ to?" He brought the phone back to the pool and sat on the edge, his feet in the water. "I'll go, but only cause it's Louis. If you get married yer on yer own." And there would presumably be an open bar, too, and old habits died hard; Francis wasn't about to pass up free booze. Still. "I told him he shoulda eloped to Vegas. Be a hell of a lot cheaper."

Rolling her eyes, Zoey snorted, "I'll be sure to elope then, to spare you, Francis."

Maybe he'd go to Vegas, he had all the time in the world to plan out a few epic journeys now. "How's yer classes going?"

"Good," she said, "I'm going to Bill's in a little bit to cook him dinner, if you want to be one of my test subjects. Curry!"

They didn't get to spend as much time with Louis now that the whole wedding thing was kicking into gear, and Zoey was somewhat relieved to be rather out of that loop. Showing up and enjoying the reception was plenty.

"Sounds good, I'll be there. Had any luck talking Bill into spending any of his dough?" Bill hadn't even moved out of his tiny apartment, saying he already had everything he needed. Aside from buying his scotch from the top shelf, he hadn't spent any of their windfall as far as the others could see. He hadn't even bought a new car, despite Francis constantly ribbing him about it.

"Even if I_ was_ trying that, I bet I'd have as much luck with it as I would telling you to invest yours a bit," Zoey laughed, shaking her head even though he couldn't see her. If Bill said he had everything, she was game to believe him. He didn't have any debts to pay off, no expensive hobbies, and no family to speak of. If something struck his fancy, he'd certainly have the funds available.

Zoey started to shift her collected ingredients into a backpack, deciding she would leave some news she had for Francis in particular a surprise. She'd passed her certification for her motorcycle. Showing up riding it was a lot cooler than telling him about it over the phone.

* * *

Bill generally gave his place a bit of a tidy up before anyone visited. Not that there was much to tidy. He hadn't been told to expect Francis, but he did anyway, since a reasonable income (of sorts) hadn't seemed to dim his appreciation of a free meal. And Zoey really was coming along with her cooking. Bill had grumbled a bit about 'meals on wheels' at first, but not very loudly, and now he was nothing but grateful for the fact that he practically had a part-time chef.

He wasn't surprised when he heard a motorbike arrive in the street below but went to have a look when he heard the engine note joined by another one. He shook his head when he saw Zoey unloading a bag of ingredients from a bike of her own, something Japanese it looked like from this angle. He couldn't hear any words, but Francis certainly seemed enthusiastic about the whole thing. Crazy kids.

Down in the parking lot, Zoey was grinning at Francis as she gathered up her armload of supplies, quite pleased with his reaction. It had been worth it, to leave it a surprise. The electric blue motorcycle was great fun to ride. Maybe not as visually impressive as Francis', but she knew better than to bite off more than she could chew in that regard. The light little motorbike suited her just fine.

"Think Bill'll yell at me for riding around on a death trap like you?" she wondered, leaving her helmet on as she headed for the elevator, glancing up at the windows on their way in. Was Bill watching them? It was hard to tell from this angle.

"Yep!" Francis said, still beaming proudly at her. "Next time you get a break," he hit the button on the elevator for her, "we have to go exploring. Might even elope, huh?" he winked.

Bill opened his door as soon as he heard the lift ping, and waved them both in. "I thought you had more common sense, Zoey," he said good-naturedly. If Francis was still in one piece, Zoey would be okay. She wasn't as likely to ride like a maniac, he hoped. He nodded at Francis and shut the door behind them.

"Nope," she grinned back, just as good-natured as she headed into the kitchen, "Just wait until you get a post card from Vegas after we elope."

Zoey started to get out the pans and utensils she'd need to cook - she'd brought the ones she knew he didn't have - and got straight into it. Her grin didn't fade when she was by herself. She felt the most at home when she was spending time with her boys. Sometimes she wondered if this was why she hadn't started dating again. Whoever she went out with probably wouldn't appreciate being ditched so she could go cook for a Vietnam veteran, or tear around town with a biker, or maybe head down to the rifle range with an engineer. Zoey smirked, the thought that nobody could hope to measure up to her boys in any capacity striking her as funny. Ah, well. Louis could be normal for all four of them.

"Did you get a wedding invitation?" she called out. Figuring she'd keep with the joke, she added, "From Louis and Rachel, I mean."

Bill ignored her jokes, knowing better than to rise to the bait. "I did, he's a lucky man, that one." Rachel at least, understood something of Louis's bond with the other three, and knew better than to object when he wanted to spend time with any of them. Bill eyed Francis thoughtfully, his expression suggesting he was not thinking about anything as cheerful as the upcoming wedding. "Francis, you remember when that hunter jumped you, halfway up Mercy hospital?"

"Yeah," Francis replied slowly, with a raised eyebrow. Where was this going?

"Still got the scars? Let me see."

"What the hell, old man?"

"Francis!"

"Okay, okay." Bill's orders were still to be obeyed, and Francis lifted his shirt, "Happy now?"

Bill didn't answer, but his expression suggested he wasn't.

Zoey peeped her head out into the main room, waiting for water to boil, and raised her eyebrows at the two of them. It wasn't like it was rare to occasionally discuss_ zombie stuff_ when they were in each other's company, but comparing scars?

"What are you guys _doing?_" she wondered, a slightly amused tone in her voice. Bill's expression wasn't one that lent itself well to humor, however, and she sobered a bit. What was he thinking? "Show and tell? I still got a scar on my head from when I got bonked into a wall by smoker."

She absently felt around the back of her head, fingers exploring for the scar. It was covered by thick brown hair, and she'd found it entirely on accident while washing her hair. At the time she'd been worried she'd fractured her skull.

"Nothin'," Bill said gruffly, as Francis pulled his shirt back down. "Just been thinkin'." He didn't give any sign that he was going to elaborate. Francis raised his eyebrows at Zoey and shrugged. Maybe the old guy was finally losing it.

"What're you thinking about?" Zoey asked. She wasn't so easily thrown off the scent, and she folded her arms in front of her, watching Bill closely. It was the most terrible weapon in any woman's arsenal, that question, as there was no real way out of it without just digging yourself into deeper trouble. Zoey didn't wield it lightly.

Bill glanced at Francis, and received no help there. The biker was just as curious as to what was going on. Bill lit up almost defiantly, and shrugged, it wasn't like there was any point in keeping things quiet. "Kid Doctor sent me in for more tests. I can tell he's just waitin' for me to get cancer so he can tell me to stop smoking." Bill scowled, "Well they didn't find any, did they? They found hairline fractures on my ribs. Remember that smoker? That's what'll kill you."

"He busted your ribs?" Francis asked. "Why the hell didnt' you say anythin'?"

Zoey frowned as well, but didn't comment. Typical Bill, really. Any of them probably would've gotten lectured for keeping something like that quiet. Then again, none of them had pain tolerance as high as he did.

"What good would it have done? We had to keep movin' not wait fer me to get better. My point is," they were wandering off topic, "our scars are real. _Somethin_ did this to us. We weren't hooked up ter some machine and just made to think they had."

She chewed on her lower lip a little, brow knitting.

"You think those things were _real?_" Zoey said a bit unnecessarily, "That... I mean, if they are, that means that _virus_ is real, doesn't it? We weren't... shooting actors or something. I..."

She glanced over her shoulder and removed herself from the room to keep the water from boiling over, not sure she wanted those things to be real. Simulation had made her think of crazy advanced computer equipment, but how did that explain the scar on her head, and the fact that she could make an accurate guess of how many bullets were left in a pistol by weight? Zoey frowned over the stove. This just added a whole new level of 'screwed up' to something she'd been trying hard to put behind her.

Bill frowned, she had asked, but that was precisely why he didn't want to discuss it. He hadn't sorted it all out in his head yet. He glanced at Francis, who seemed to be considering it pretty hard himself.

"Yeah, I like that," the biker said eventually. "I hate to think I'd wasted all my awesome on some computer game." He said it lightly, but his expression was serious. Maybe he had been giving it some thought himself.

A few more minutes in the kitchen and she was out again, twirling a wooden spoon dexterously in one hand.

"Well, even if they were real," she reasoned, "I mean, obviously they've got it under control, right? They weren't... _trying_ to kill us. Were they?"

The idea of a tank being something that she might actually run into again wasn't one she was savoring.

"There must've been some safety measures," Zoey said, the spoon twirl obviously to diffuse nerves. Had she accepted a half a million dollar payout without realizing that the government had purposefully tried to kill her? Furthermore... her eyes widened a little, "God, they must've dosed us all with an antidote or something, if we were getting bitten and scratched by _actual_ infected."

"Or we're actually immune," Francis pointed out. "They musta picked us for a reason."

"Let's just calm down," Bill said, watching Zoey and kicking himself for letting her talk him into telling her what he was thinking about. "This is all speculation." He couldn't tell them not to worry, or that it didn't matter.

"I guess," she frowned, retreating into the kitchen again. Even if they were half right, what did that mean? Nothing, really. It'd bug her, not _knowing_, and it was obviously bothering Bill, but what could be done for it? They'd signed an agreement over the whole thing, and weren't they getting along just fine? No sense kicking up a fuss and ruining their payout just because there were unknowns.

Zoey finished the curry and served it up, watching both men closely for their reactions to it. She thought it tasted edible, but her test subjects would have the final say.

Test subjects. Hrm. What if they were actually immune, like Francis said? Putting genetic freaks (of a sort) through harrowing ordeals seemed kind of unnecessary. How did them somehow managing to barely scrape out of hordes of murderous infected help the government form some sort of plan?

They both attacked the meal with enthusiasm, but Francis kept glancing over at Bill, as if awaiting orders. Christ. He should have known better than to give the big idiot the idea of another adventure. He'd had enough, what good would it do busting into government installations? He suspected that would see their money cut off pretty sharpish.

He changed the subject, "So, are we gettin' Louis anything particular? Aside what's on the list."

"Yeah, a skeleton key," Francis mumbled through a mouthful of food.

When dinner was over they sat around and talked like they usually did, but Bill seemed fairly distracted. He kept drifting away from the conversation, as if thinking of something else, and Francis started to wonder if the old guy was finally going senile. His suspicions, as far as he was concerned, were confirmed as they were leaving.

"Zoey," he said, leaning against the doorframe, "Louis is too busy with the wedding stuff, so if you're free sometime this week, do you reckon you could give me a hand with the computer? The guy set it up well enough, but I reckon I need some tutoring in how this internet thing works."

"Bill, you're definitely going senile." Francis wasn't really one for subtlety.

"Sure Bill," Zoey said with a slow smile, nudging Francis, "Do you even know how to turn a computer on, Francis? Anyway, I've got class all day tomorrow but the day after I'm free. What time do you want me to stop by?"

She allowed herself the private conceit that she was better with the internet than Louis was, although she was somewhat doubtful that Bill was keen to while away the hours watching YouTube.

"Anytime, kid. I'll be here."


	15. Chapter 15

Zoey woke up early on her mid-week day off. Being in school had set her internal clock a bit earlier than it usually was, though she imagined Bill had been up for hours as she rode the elevator up to his floor. Though the idea to wake up extra early and show up to make breakfast had crossed her mind, she had struck it down as being a little weird in the grand scheme of things. His neighbours probably already thought he was a little crazy considering the bizarre spread of company he kept. Maybe a lot crazy.

To compromise, she'd brought some bagels and coffee as a sort of brunch. She'd had some time to think about what Bill might want to do on the internet, but she couldn't quite figure it out. Still, whatever his reasons were, she was happy to teach _him_ something for once. It might not save his life or anything, but it would at least save him from boredom. He'd probably heard her bike when she'd arrived, and she was already smiling as she approached his door. Would she get a chance to knock before it opened?

Bill claimed to be interested in tracking down old army buddies, and he had her explaining search engines and teaching him about useful things that could be achieved with publicly available information. Either he was hell bent on finding everyone he ever served with, or he was just being his usual thorough self, but he grilled her mercilessly, and took constant notes. He obviously wasn't interested in entertaining himself per se, although he did seem to take a certain pleasure in nailing another piece of information, discovering who was still alive - and a few who weren't.

He thanked Zoey for her time and took her out for ice cream, although he refused to ride on the back of her bike to do so. And then said nothing more about it, only answering monosyllabically when asked about it.

It wasn't until a few weeks after Louis returned from his honeymoon that he suggested they all meet up like it was old times; anyone's place would do, but somewhere private.

Volunteering her own place was easy to do. She'd certainly bought enough furniture to seat everyone, and it would be easier to cook for everyone in her own kitchen with her own tools, along with all the fiddly ingredients she might otherwise forget. Besides, she hadn't had any of them over yet, for one reason or another. Generally she went to them, so it'd be a nice change of pace, though she didn't at all mind going out to visit. Having them all at her apartment would make it feel a little more like a home.

Louis showed up first, and she wasn't at all surprised when he held up a bottle of wine. He'd gotten quite a few before the wedding and they were still going through them.

"That'll go great with the spaghetti," she smiled, giving him a tight hug before letting him in, "Make yourself at home."

There was a weird newness to her apartment, like she'd barely been living in it, and Louis wondered if she had a maid. Not that he thought she was messy by nature, but otherwise he was thinking she just didn't spend a lot of time in it by herself. Now that he was married, he had developed an irritating habit of suggesting others seek the same avenue. He was only half-serious about it when it came to Zoey, since she _had_ caught the bouquet, but the way she rolled her eyes at him had caused him to go easy on that front. She had blamed her zombie-honed instincts for the catch. It seemed like a fair assessment.

Bill and Francis arrived at roughly the same time, Francis with some beer and Bill with a folder full of printed material. Francis was torn between utter curiosity and 'oh man, not homework'.

"If yer going senile-"

"You're free to go home after dinner, Francis, I'd hate to tax your overloaded brain with anythin' as complicated as _words_." They were inside before the biker could think of a suitable response, and Bill ignored him in favour of Louis, asking him how he liked married life. Bill was fairly sure that he wasn't about to convince any of them of its merits.

Like Louis, the two of them were rewarded with hugs for showing up, and it wasn't long before she started serving up dinner. Zoey had noticed the folder as well, but it seemed prudent to get dinner out of the way first. Whatever it was that Bill had dug up, she didn't want to interrupt it by ducking into the kitchen to check on the noodles.

Louis was happy to inform them about how great married life was. Rachel was still riding pretty high from their Paris honeymoon, and being able to spend an obscene amount of money on the wedding itself had certainly raised her spirits. For now, he avoided talking about his plans to start a family. Marriage was already a subject of gentle mockery in the group. He'd burn that bridge when he came to it. The general gist, though, was that Life Was Good.

"I uh, I made a pie for dessert," Zoey said when she was able to get a word in edgewise, "If anyone has room."

She hoped whatever Bill had in that folder didn't end up being a buzzkill for Louis. Things were going pretty darn well for him.

"Serve it up, and siddown." That voice was back. The one he rarely used unless he was trying to get service somewhere - or keep them moving in the face of zombie hordes. It made Francis sit up, and he leaned forward, actually looking sort of hopeful. He was getting a bit sick of Louis's Perfect Life Show, to be honest. Money hadn't really made that much difference to him, now that the original euphoria had worn off. And hell if he was going to get married.

Bill waited until they were paying attention, which wasn't terribly long. He opened his mysterious folder and frowned, considering where to begin.

"I found Slater," he said eventually. "Pretty sure it's him. Real whiz-kid. Lotta awards and such - easy to follow, until he started working for the government. Hadta use process of elimination, after that." He wasn't the super sleuth he was pretending to be. He just had a good memory for voices and a phone bill that equalled all other expenses for the month.

"Bill, I hate ta rain on yer parade, but wasn't part of what we signed that we wouldn't go pokin' around?" Francis kind of liked where this was going, but he wasn't too keen on seeing those huge government cheques get cut off.

"We can't talk ta anyone else about it. And if we show up we're tresspassin', like they said." He grinned slyly, "All _this_ is publicly available information."

Cunning old bastard. Sounded good enough to Francis.

Zoey didn't bother hiding that she was impressed. He'd pretty much sucked her brain dry of every trick in the book she'd known about internet searching. And memorized them and applied them with an efficiency and tenacity she wasn't sure she'd be able to muster. Well, he'd put the knowledge to an... interesting use.

"Why did you go looking for Slater?" she wondered. He was up to something, obviously. Bill wouldn't have dug so deep and for so long if he didn't have a purpose for doing so.

"Pretty sure he wouldn't be too happy if he found out you did," Louis frowned. He didn't quite approve of this and absently twisted the gold band on his finger. Why dig up some government dude? The government was paying them a lot of money to sit down and shut up about what had happened. Zoey and Francis both looked interested, though, sitting forward in their chairs, eyes fixed on Bill. This was why he thought they needed to hook up with other people. Louis was convinced they spent most of their time alone thinking about zombies. Well, so did he, but he had done his best to minimize his alone time to avoid it.

"We all got 'em," Bill said grimly. "The scars. _Somethin_' chewed us up out there. I've seen a lot of people get busted up in a lot of ways, but this is different. They had to test the simulation, make sure their computer was right. So they got real people. What about the rest of it?"

"Yeah, but how? It was like the entire city was there."

Bill shook his head, "I don't know. But look, Slater is, as best I can guess, in a government installation in the Mojave somewhere. Well, I can tell you where, because the place grew significantly about two and a half years ago." He flipped through his papers. "They bought up the land. All above board and public knowledge. Googlemaps ain't real useful though." He handed them a sheet of paper which showed mostly a blurred out blob surrounded by desert.

"I was just...I wanted to figure out what Kid Doc couldn't. How I cracked my ribs, and where the hell I got all those _bitemarks_ from. I figured you guys would appreciate knowin' what I found." Yeah right.

Though the fact that the word 'googlemaps' had come out of Bill's mouth tickled her, Zoey wasn't laughing. If there was some facility somewhere, some ominous government installation that had infected in pens... well, to start with, that meant they had been shooting infected people. And the government had grabbed people to infect for said shooting.

She wouldn't have accepted the money if she'd been set up to shoot other innocent people, she didn't think. Just thinking about it was... it made her frown and she rested her chin on her knees.

"If those were real people, that means that virus is real," Zoey said. They'd discussed this a bit before, but the subject had been dropped for quite awhile, "And if it's real... what we went through could actually happen. That's..."

"Ain't our problem," Louis said, "What could we even do about it?"

"Well I don't know about you, but I'd feel like an asshole if an actual outbreak happened and I'd known about it months beforehand," she frowned at him, "I don't _know _what we can do. Maybe we could visit Slater and ask him if he'd kindly take extra care to not let an outbreak happen. Oh, and to pay us like a _billion _dollars each for making us shoot people they kidnapped and infected with a horrible zombie virus."

Jesus, what if it had been _them_ who'd gotten the zombie treatment?

"I don't think Slater's entirely in on this," Bill pointed out. "He's a computer expert, not a scientist. I reckon they were killing two birds with one shot - test out their computer and their virus. And Slater sounds like a good person; risking his position to make sure we got compensated about all of this. He was just the way in. A solid name to track down. And hell, a friend, or as close as we got to one."

"Well, what the hell do we do now?" Francis asked, staring at the blurred picture and frowning. "It's been months. It ain't like there's been an outbreak or nothin'." He sounded almost regretful.

Bill shook his head, "I ain't thought that far to be honest. Besides, I have no place ordering you around. You've got your own lives now." Francis just snorted. "I just wanted to know what really happened."

"Fuck it, I'm goin'." Francis declared.

"Don't be an ass!" That was not the response Bill was hoping for.

"Aww come on, if it's just me I'll go back inside, so what? Least we'll all know, and maybe we can tell the world and get the place shut down or somethin'."

"Forget it, Francis." Bill was ordering him, not loudly, but without room for argument. The biker just shook his head and stood up, collecting his helmet from near the door before slamming it behind him.

"He needs to grow up."

Zoey frowned a little at Bill, cell phone in hand, tempted to call the biker back in. He was obviously cranky about the situation, and while storming out and slamming doors didn't solve anything, Francis wasn't much of a talker. He was a doer, and he didn't have anything to _do_.

"Maybe he's got a point," she said to the veteran, internally cringing at arguing with Bill's order to 'forget it', "I mean, not the base or whatever it is, but contacting Slater somehow. Something off the radar. He was the one who contacted us, through Rachel, and I think it's safe to assume nobody found out about it. Maybe he'd be keen to give us a bit more information on the sly."

"Why, though?" Louis said, "Why stir shit up?"

"It's not shit stirring," Zoey protested, "I'm not saying we go over there and tie the guy up and shine a light in his face, you know? He obviously had some qualms about the whole thing or he wouldn't have contacted us. I dunno, it'd be something to do. Me and Francis were already planning a road trip when this semester is over, so-"

"A road trip?" Louis repeated. He was only trying to change the subject a _little_ bit - Bill would talk her out of contacting or visiting Slater quick enough, he was sure. And possibly out of a road trip with Francis afterward.

"On our bikes," she clarified, smiling a little, "He's calling it an _adventure_, though."

"Louis," Bill didn't comment on Zoey's plans for an adventure. "Go and talk to Francis before he leaves in a huff. I didn't come here with the intent to start you all fighting. I ain't expecting agreement, but I figure you should try and understand each other. And yeah, I know he's the one who stormed out, but he's a knucklehead and I can expect better from you."

Louis was already halfway to the door when he realized he didn't really want to talk an angry Francis down. Why couldn't Zoey do it? And why was it so automatic to do whatever Bill said after all this time? He hustled a bit to catch up with the biker since he had a head start, calling out in the carpark beneath Zoey's apartment building.

"Francis!" he said, "Wait up, man."

There had definitely been a time where running into a guy like Francis in a mostly empty carpark would have scared the hell out of him, but as he jogged after the biker, all that crossed his mind was that maybe going on and on about how well he'd been doing hadn't been the smoothest transition to Bill's discovery. Not everyone was happy for things to be back to normal, though Louis couldn't see why the biker would still want to be surrounded by murderous zombies. Surely there was a happy medium between utter tedium and constant terror?

Francis was halfway across the carpark when Louis called him back. He spun around, still walking backwards, helmet in one hand and keys in the other.

"I'm assumin' you're chasing me all the way down here to thank me for offering to step up and do somethin'. I'm not asking you to stick your goddamn pencil neck out after all."

"Francis," Louis said. He paused a moment when the biker turned, but was forced to keep going when he did, giving Francis a reproachful look, "You know that going out there would be a bad idea. None of us want to see you back in prison. Doubt that you want to _go_ back, either. Is life that _bad_, man?"

Francis stopped walking, raising his arms slightly as if to argue. "Okay, you know what, yeah. At least when I couldn't pay my rent I had something to fucking _do_. You think if I get a chance to be a hero again I'm gonna turn it down? What else am I supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for Zoey to go on holidays? Hang out with Bill on the goddamn _internet_?" He exhaled angrily, waiting for the advice that would fix _his_ life.

Louis blinked and bit back his first few responses, resting his hands on his hips and regarding the biker with a thoughtful expression.

"I didn't really think of us as heroes," he admitted, "There isn't anything heroic about getting sniped at some secret military base, either. I... shit, man. I didn't know you felt that way," the engineer shoved his hands in his pockets, his half-smile apologetic, "Guess I haven't really been thinkin' about anything but myself lately. Listen. After you stomped out Zoey suggested visiting Slater instead of storming the base proper. That could be a thing, right?"

"That's cause you were shit scared all the time, Louis. Some of us watched the bigger picture." Francis shrugged, not really angry anymore. "I didn't even think about it. If one of you guys was in trouble I'd wade in and try and sort it out without even thinking. I ain't in the habit of putting my hide on the line for people I don't even know. Felt good," he admitted. "Couldn't hurt, I guess. Well, it could. Slater could get fired for talkin' to us." Francis frowned, "If Zoey and I go, and hell, maybe Bill," he looked Louis in the eye, "You comin' too, man?"

He relaxed his posture when it seemed like Francis wasn't going to keep raging, a bemused smile on his face up until the point where he asked if _he_ was coming. Louis shifted uncomfortably and ran one hand over the top of his head.

"Man, you know I'll always roll with you guys," he said quietly, looking down at his shoes, "Rachel won't like it, though. I told her we were all over and done with that kinda shit. I mean, I figured we _were_."

"I kinda figured you'd be keen to go. Out of all of us you've got someone to protect who can't protect themselves. If Bill's right, tanks _exist_, Louis. It's too easy to forget, like it was dream or somethin'." He sighed, "Well hell, visitin' Slater ain't gonna be half as excitin' as busting into a secret base, but it's better 'n nothing." He started walking back towards the stairs. "Come on then, I can't believe I left without gettin' dessert."

Though the thought of telling Rachel that he was getting mixed up in 'weird zombie crap' again wasn't a pleasant one, he couldn't help but smirk at Francis. Maybe he was having a midlife crisis or something.

Zoey looked relieved when the two of them returned, gesturing to two plates she'd set out. She hadn't heard an engine revving, and so she'd figured the two of them had worked things out.

"I thought I was going to have to send all this pie home with Bill," she commented. Not that she thought the veteran would complain, but still. It wasn't like the biker to walk out on free food.

"Just had to talk him round, is all. Looks like our adventure is on." Francis grinned, as if he'd engineered the whole thing.

Bill just shook his head, but even he looked slightly pleased.


	16. Chapter 16

It wasn't immediately obvious that Gasoline was actually the name of the town. The entire place had the cheap, transient air of a gas station, and the same surreal juxtaposition of bright fluorescent lights and desert backdrop. Without the base, Gasoline wouldn't even exist. It was a mere dot on a map, the final destination for road trains delivering supplies to the base, and mostly a place to go for off-duty personnel. There was little of substance here; a token school and library for the locals, and the rest was motels, pubs, pool halls, strip joints and takeaway places.

"I can see why Francis was so keen to come here," Bill commented. The motorcyclists were ahead, and Bill was happy to leave the driving to Louis while he had the very difficult task of making sure they didn't take the wrong turn off. The last one was only a couple hundred miles back. They'd fallen into the rhythm of a road trip surprisingly easily, and into the habit of calling motels 'safehouses'. There was no shortage of vacancy signs, and with no place seeming more or less inviting than any of the others Francis eventually picked one apparently at random, waving them in behind him.

They were here. What an anticlimax. Bill shrugged at Louis as the others divested themselves of their helmets, "I don't really know if we're gonna find anythin' here, to be honest." It had cheered Francis up no end, however, and keeping together and on the move satisfied leftover instincts from their zombie experience that rebelled against the notion of ordinary life.

"A five dollar lapdance, maybe," Louis said, glad to be out of the car and stretching his legs. Francis seemed to be in an extraordinarily good mood, anyway. How much of that was being the focus of Zoey's big '_we're on an adventure!_' grin? She seemed to be enjoying the road trip tremendously. Louis hoped she at least finished college before she decided that biking around America and sleeping in seedy motels was a better way to spend her life.

"Let's get checked in," Zoey said when she approached the car, motioning for Louis to pop the trunk, "And hit a diner. I am a hungry mungry."

"Seems pretty quiet," the engineer said, popping the trunk open and grabbing out his own suitcase. It was strange how damned _flat_ it was out here.

Francis looked as proud as if he'd built the place himself as he went through his usual routine of cracking his back and looking over his beloved bike for signs of wear and tear. The carpark was almost empty. Only one stationwagon was parked in the corner, and it probably belonged to a traveling salesman rather than someone from the base.

"Must be the off-season," he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "This place is kinda quiet." He looked at his watch, wondering if they'd somehow lost a few hours, but it was still relatively early. "At least we won't have trouble getting rooms." Not that they ever did; no one had any issues with sharing, and Francis was positively keen on the idea when it didn't look like Zoey would get a room to herself. Even the smallest hotel room was a cut above some of the safehouses they'd crammed themselves in to.

"We'll take a look at Slater's apartment tomorrow then," Bill said, reminding them of their excuse for assembling in the middle of nowhere. He was beginning to think that's what it was; an excuse. The trip itself, regardless of motivations, had done wonders for his temper, and the others looked the same.

"I'll book our rooms, then," Zoey said over her shoulder, already heading for the small office, "Maybe the front desk can suggest a good place for us tourists to go grab a decent bite to eat."

There was a certain bounce in her step she knew she didn't ordinarily have. It felt good to be out doing things with the boys. All of the adventure with none of the screaming and shooting. She looked up a moment when the door chimed and approached the small front desk, producing her wallet and smiling at the attendant.

"Four singles?" she asked, absently tapping her credit card on the counter. Any combination would suit them, really, but all the vacancy signs suggested that for once they'd actually have private rooms. The chances of them all cramming into one until bedtime were pretty high, though, "Oh, and can you recommend a good place to grab a bite to eat?"

"At least they have HBO here," Louis said dryly, still standing out in the carpark and looking up at the neon of the motel. He preferred places with pools and continental breakfasts, personally, but those didn't tend to reside on Interstates, "I'm gonna call Rachel and let her know we made it okay."

He shot Francis a preemptive look of warning. Yes. He knew he was whipped.

Zoey got a big smile, room keys in record time, and about half a dozen recommendations for places to eat. The receptionist was presumably also the owner, and a middle-aged lady who was presumably his wife poked her head out from a back room at the sound of voices and gave Zoey a very nice smile. All a bit unnerving really.

As long as the others were polite enough to stop every so often, Bill was polite enough not to smoke in Louis's car, and he was last to collect his keys. They were all pretty hungry, and he held up his hand; five minutes was more than enough time to throw bags on beds and make sure that there weren't any giant rats in their rooms. _That_ incident had made Francis the butt of everyone's jokes for days.

"There's a Burger Tank at the end of the street," she said, spinning her room key on her finger, gripping her helmet straps with the other. Zoey couldn't speak for the other places, but Burger Tank still had a smoking section at every franchise she'd ever been in. That made it the obvious choice.

"Hell yeah," Louis said, "We gonna carpool?"

"Pffft," Zoey grinned, already settling her helmet back on her head. Louis shook his head and got back into the car with Bill, letting Francis and Zoey lead the way again.

"If she starts wearing leather vests," Louis confided to Bill, "We need to stage an intervention."

All Gasoline really had was a main street, and there sat the Burger Tank, parking lot likely occupied by employees cars and not patrons. Definitely the off season.

"Let's skip this place on our next road trip," Zoey said to Francis. She turned her head to watch Louis park as she took her helmet off again.

"This place probably won't be 'ere for our next road trip if business don't pick up," Francis commented. "It's Friday night, and the place is dead. You'd think there'd be someone from the base off-duty." He nodded at a strip joint across the street. The neon sign next to the door was of a scantily-clad lady winking next to a sign that said 'Hello Soldier'. Subtlety was apparently a scarce resource in Gasoline.

He shrugged; the plight of the town wasn't really their business, and he was hungry. He headed inside Burger Tank, more than happy to give their cook something to do.

They had their pick of places to sit, and the four of them wound up in a booth in the far corner of the smoking section. It was weird being inside a deserted Burger Tank, but at least they had privacy. And prompt service.

"I'm startin' to get creeped out," Louis said, considering his menu, "You'd think at least the locals'd be around."

"Yeah," Zoey agreed. She already knew what she wanted and she fidgeted with her own menu, turning it end over end, "Maybe the pod people got em'."

"If it was the pod people," Louis pointed out, "They would all still be here, just acting weird."

"Maybe they went to invade the base," she raised her eyebrows at him as though her own point was obvious.

Bill was taking things a bit more seriously. He stared out at the deserted street and frowned. "When we don't find Slater tomorrow, and I'm willin' to bet we won't, we might wanna find out what's goin' on here."

"I bet those girls across the road are really bored tonight," Francis said wistfully. Bill just shook his head, and Louis was obviously never going to visit a strip club now he was married. It was tough enough dragging him to one for his buck's party.

"Hey Zoey-"

"_Francis!_"

Foiled.

Breakfast was takeaway eaten eagerly in Bill's room. Even if they didn't turn up what had happened to Slater, the prospect of a town so close to the base being so empty was a good one. Zoey wondered if they ought to get a van and a talking dog to round things out. The housing wasn't particularly fancy in Gasoline, but the apartment complex that Slater supposedly lived at seemed... cleaner than most, she supposed. If he worked on some top secret project, she doubted he'd have much to do with outside housing anyway. Why waste the money renting some fancy penthouse when you were never in it?

Pressing the buzzer got no response from Slater, and Bill peered in his letterbox. "Lotta dust in here, don't reckon any mail's come through for a while." He straightened up and shrugged; he wasn't about to suggest they try and break in, even if any of them were capable of it.

"Can I help you?" Bill looked around to see the door to a ground floor apartment open, and an elderly, yet sprightly woman peering out at them with some apprehension and greater curiosity. Francis was obviously worrying her, but it looked like Gasoline for all its sleaze was a low-crime neighbourhood.

"Hey, hi there," Louis greeted with a warm smile, "We're looking for a friend of ours, John Slater. Do you know if he's out of town?"

He gestured up at the building vaguely, as though to indicate Slater's residence.

She relaxed a bit when they mentioned names. "He's on base," she said. "Most of the residents here are. Were you expecting him to be on leave?" she asked, interested. "Because no one's been out for two weeks now. I don't know what the army thinks it's doing. These are people's livelihoods." She pulled her cardigan a bit closer around her shoulders, as if warding off a financial chill.

"I take it someone's usually on leave?" Bill asked, giving the others a significant look.

"Of course. They rotate them. We can expect a few hundred through every weekend, or we _could_."

Useful information indeed, and Bill silently thanked whatever force of the universe that was responsible for putting at least one chatty neighbour in every apartment block, even though he'd cursed his own often enough.

"There hasn't been anyone at _all_ from the base?" Louis clarified. He already guessed what the answer was, though, and the implications weren't too stellar. What could possibly be keeping an entire military base from taking leave for two weeks?

Zoey raised her eyebrows at Bill when he looked at the three of them and then shifted a look sideways at Francis, nudging him a little. Maybe he'd get his adventure after all. If there was some kind of zombie hyjinx going on they sort of _had _to look into it, didn't they? She couldn't tell if it was excitement or dread coiling in the pit of her stomach. Maybe both.

Bill thanked her for the information, and she said it was a pity they'd come out all this way for no reason. Once they were outside again Bill lit a cigarette and looked up at the cloudless desert sky. Someone had to say it. "Sounds like the base is under quarantine to me."

"Hell yeah! I knew they'd need our help," Francis grinned, apparently more than ready to charge off and rescue the army from whatever mess it had found itself in.

"Whoa, _whoa_," Louis held up his hands, "How are we supposed to help, exactly? We don't have any guns and we aren't... guys, we can't infiltrate a quarantined military base."

"We haven't tried yet," Zoey pointed out, shrugging her shoulders a bit, "We can't do nothing, Louis. If they're in some kind of trouble... well. We know how this story goes."

He exhaled a frustrated sigh and nodded. Even if the infection started here and not in Pennsylvania, the results would probably be the same. He doubted he'd be able to go through losing his friends and family_ and_ Rachel again.

"So what's our plan?" he wondered, directing the question at Bill.

Bill considered for a few moments. There wouldn't be a lot of going back once they'd gone over the wire, as it were, and as amusing as it had been to speculate back at home he wondered if he was really up to plunging back into that mess all over again. He looked at the deserted street and thought of all those soldiers, cooped up in a base with who-knew-what.

"Guns first. That shouldn't be too hard. And we're hiring a jeep," he glanced significantly at Francis. "No bikes. You're too exposed on one of those things. All it would take is one smoker." Francis didn't seem to mind, his eyes had lit up at the word 'guns' and it appeared that it was enough to satisfy him.

"I dunno what we're likely to find. Maybe nothin' but worst case scenario, we're gettin' any survivors outta there. They can bomb the damn place after that, and hang their fucking research." It wouldn't be much of a loss, in his opinion. "Shoppin' today, we'll go early tomorrow."

Shopping preemptively for breaking into a quarantined military base was a... unique prospect, and one best done in teams. Francis' record prevented him from purchasing firearms, and so Zoey suggested they hit up some others store for the less exciting supplies while Bill and Louis looked after guns. Backpacks, water bottles, and fire alarms were at the top of her list. As they made their way through the small hardware store looking for the right sort of pipe, she looked over at him and started to laugh.

"We have the _weirdest_ lives," she confided, not too terribly worried about being overheard. They'd already waved off the man at the register, assuring them they could find what they needed without assistance.

"We have the _best_ lives," he corrected her. "We're rich _and_ superheroes."

"Superheroes?" Zoey repeated, examining a length of pipe with an appraising frown, "I don't know about that. We're pretty rad, though. Does this look like the right kind?"

She peered at him through the pipe like it was a telescope, her purpose to show him how thick it was. Hell if she could remember the right thickness of pipebomb pipes - that was Louis' department. He probably knew right down to the millimeter.

"Close enough," Francis said. "He can learn to improvise." He grinned. "We'd better not order room service tonight though." He couldn't help but feel the management would look down on a bomb factory in one of their rooms.

"Do motel's even _have_ room service?" she wondered, meandering through the aisles with great purpose. Tape. Make-shift fuses. Glue. Hacksaw. Fire alarms. What were they even going to say when they brought this up to the front counter? They were either terrorists or really, really kinky plumbers. They should have grabbed a cart, either way. She'd never really appreciated just how much went into the damned pipe bombs until now.

"With the way business has been around here, I reckon they'd give us room service if we asked for it." Now the boring bits were done they just had to wait until the others go back with the guns. This was turning out to be the best road trip ever.

As it turned out Bill had absolutely no problems in acquiring a small arsenal of weapons. He was the type that just sort of blended in to a gun shop, and the owner chatted happily to him as if they'd known each other for years. He didn't try to carry everything back himself, he just waited for Louis to show up with a jeep - which had probably been harder to get his hands on than the guns had been. They weren't bothering with handguns for now - if the virus really was out, they didn't have time for the waiting period, and if things had really gone to hell they could probably pick some up second-hand soon enough.

With the possible exception of Louis, they were all completely crazy.


	17. Chapter 17

When Bill came to knock on her door, Zoey answered fully dressed and ready to go, offering him a quiet and nervous smile in the muted morning light. She'd slept well enough, but she was definitely a bit on edge. It wasn't all nerves, really. She wasn't worried about them so much as what they would find, and what they would have to do, and the possibility that they wouldn't be able to actually do anything. They'd faced larger unknowns together, but it still had an edge of deja vu. Here they went again, out of the saferoom and into the thick of it.

The idea that it was only one building, one base, gave her some hope. There couldn't be that many actual infected with such a limited selection of people. Surely they had people on base who were immune.

Louis had wrestled with the idea of telling Rachel what they were doing, and not telling her, finally deciding to simply send her a cutesy text message assuring her he'd call her tonight. He was enough of a wreck. Thinking that she was back in Pittsburgh quietly freaking out wouldn't do him any favors.

Francis had managed to get himself out of bed without anyone waking him up and had even offered to procure them some breakfast. He returned with donuts, still half-expecting they'd be back on tinned food before long. May as well enjoy civilization while it was still there, right? He knew Louis wouldn't appreciate his apocalyptic jokes, and he managed to keep them to a minimum. Events were going in his favour for once, so he had no reason to irritate the man.

Bill had them rounded up and ready to go within half an hour, and he peered at the map thoughtfully. "I reckon we should avoid the main entrance. That'll still be guarded, no matter what's goin' on inside. It'll be a bit of a drive, but there's an access road that'll take us to the edge of the government land. We can probably handle blazin' our own trail after that, it ain't like we're gonna run into any mountains."

"Hopefully they don't shoot trespassers on sight," Zoey joked. Half-joked. Really, though. She'd rather deal with zombies than trigger happy soldiers.

"Man, don't joke about that," Louis said warily, "Let's just get goin' before we see a horde runnin' down the street. Shotgun."

He assumed Bill was driving.

"Don't make Francis cram in the back, Louis," Zoey protested. She'd rather not listen to the biker bitch about his knees being crunched up the whole way.

"Zoey," Francis said dolefully, "you're breakin' my heart, I'm sure if we squished up there'd be plenty of room."

Bill just rolled his eyes and swung himself into the driver's seat. They couldn't very well drive through town obviously armed to the teeth, and he was planning on stopping once they were out of town to break out the weapons anyway. They could sort themselves out then.

It wasn't too terribly long a drive to get out of town, though it seemed like they'd have to drive near-forever to get out of sight of it in the flat, featureless desert. Things started to really sink in when she pulled a rifle out of the back, yanking off the price tag and bracing the stock on her shoulder, peering through the scope and adjusting it to her liking. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up a little and she avoided looking at the others. Not having pistols would be weird, but she'd make do. Improvising had always been a strong suit of theirs.

She found herself sort of missing her old rifle. Her life was _beyond _weird, now.

Louis kept watching the road like a hawk, convinced a highway cop was going to roll by and bust all of them. They weren't doing anything illegal, _technically_, but four people grabbing guns out of the back of a jeep was kind of suspicious looking. He only looked away when he heard a magazine sliding home and Zoey raised an eyebrow at him.

"Just like riding a bike," she joked.

Once they were all armed, and bombs and first aid distributed, they got going again, Bill having delegated map-reading duties to Louis. The jeep had sat nav, and he was relying on the engineer to work out how to use it. For all intents and purposes they were aiming for coordinates, rather than an actual place. Francis hung out of the back of the jeep, keeping an eye out for other cars and lining his sights up on tumbleweed.

About half an hour out of town, they left the highway for the access road, which was little more than a dirt track. There were some 'no trespassing' signs decorating it, all of them peppered with bullet holes. The tire ruts on the road were huge, and Bill drove carefully, slowing them down to make sure they didn't get stuck.

"I reckon military vehicles been usin' this," he called over his shoulder. "Tracks're too big for standard cars."

"Always the expert," Francis muttered to himself.

"What'd they need to transport in and out with such big trucks?" Zoey frowned. Troops, maybe? Hopefully it was mostly things going _in_, anyway. She couldn't imagine a place like this would do well to export.

"I'm wonderin' what they needed to shoot at, personally," Louis said, twisting around in his seat a little to regard the bullet hole riddled signs they'd passed. That was real encouraging.

"So long as it wasn't zombies," she said, "I'm not going to think on it too hard."

"Hey, if you see a sign in the desert, you _have_ to shoot at it," Francis explained.

They were on the move until mid morning until their path was blocked by a very solid steel gate, decorated with barbed wire. On either side a fence stretched out across the desert apparently to the horizon. Bill killed the engine, and stuck his head out the window. "I don't reckon we'll be drivin' through this." The ride, it seemed, was over.

Louis looked up at the gate and walked a short ways up to the fence, keeping a sharp eye out for cameras or maybe warning signs about the fence itself being electrified, but apparently they'd been counting on the imposing gate, barbed wire, and no trespassing signs to keep people out thus far. It probably worked on normal people. Certainly it'd work on regulars.

Probably not on them, though. They'd given up being normal people a little while ago.

"How are we getting in?" he wondered. This wasn't some flimsy chain link fence they could just cut through or shimmy under. It looked like it was secured beneath the sand, too. Whatever went on behind the gate, it was some serious shit. Fair bet they were at the right place.

"Open sesame!" Zoey attempted, arms akimbo. Louis snorted and laughed, shaking his head, "Worth a shot."

Really, though, she had no clue how they were getting past this particular obstacle. They definitely wouldn't be able to mow it down with the jeep, and climbing it seemed close to impossible. She started looking for an intercom for the hell of it. Hey, if they were under quarantine, maybe they could pretend to be reinforcements or... professional zombie exterminators.

"I'm takin a look," Francis said, beckoning to Louis. "Gimmie a leg up, I'll be able to grab the top." He slung his shotgun over his back and caught a pair of wire-cutters that Bill tossed to him. The old bastard thought of everything, didn't he? "Three, two, one, hup!" He hooked his hands over the top, and braced his feet flat against the gate to haul himself up, not wanting to leave Louis holding his weight.

"Hold on, I can see- ohholyshit." He stared for a few seconds before letting go and sliding back down the gate, with a wide-eyed expression. He pointed to the jeep, "Climb up on it, you should be able to see from there." He followed his own suggestion, scrambling up onto the bonnet and futher up on the roof before peering over the fence again.

Silhouetted against a dazzling desert sky was the very familiar top few floors of Mercy Hospital.


	18. Chapter 18

Crowding up next to him, Zoey's jaw dropped and she gestured urgently to the other two, attempting to make room for all four of them to stand on the roof of the jeep. Mercy Hospital had apparently teleported into the middle of the desert. Huh. That was... handy?

"Guess this is the place," she said, unable to take her eyes off of what was in front of her. No wonder they'd been convinced what had happened was real. Well, it _was_ real. Just not the reality they'd thought it was.

Louis didn't give a shit about confidentiality agreements just now, and he had his iPhone out to snap a picture of what was in front of him before anyone could say otherwise. It wasn't like he was going to the press or anything, he just wanted to preserve the moment for posterity.

"New Facebook profile picture?" Zoey asked him absently, her voice subdued.

"Desktop background," he replied easily.

"Well," Zoey said after a short silence, "Should we go save the army from zombies?"

"Hell yeah, I wanna see what else is over there. It's like the world's best theme park or somethin'." Francis grinned and hopped off the jeep. "If we park it against the fence we can probably get up easier, right? Since you guys are so short and all."

Bill raised his eyebrows at Francis's phrasing, but his idea seemed sound enough. "We can cut through the wire at the top easy enough. But listen, once we drop down, I don't reckon we can get back out this way. This fence's designed to keep things _in_." They were going to have to go out the front door. Or in bodybags.

"Guess we'll sort that out when we're ready to leave," Louis said, joining the others back on the ground. It was a given they were going through with this so hell, why not leap over a steel fence with no easy way out? They helped each other up and over once the wire cleared away, and Zoey brought her rifle up to bear from the high vantage, getting a better look at the facsimile Mercy. Jeez, there was the minigun and everything. She didn't linger long, feeling a bit like a target so high up and exposed, and she dropped down on the other side with an 'oof' when she landed.

"Louis?" she asked when they were all on the other side. He raised his eyebrows at her in response, and she mimed holding a cellphone, "Turn your phone off."

Hilarious as it was in movies when cellphones went off at bad times, she doubted it would as funny here. Louis obliged.

"We've been here before," Bill muttered, looking at the fence behind them. Around them were dying plants, obviously far from their native soils and untended. "We're near the farm. This is the path the APC took." He pointed down, at the ruts in the road. Mercy still loomed impossibly off to the right, and various other buildings, all vaguely familiar, could be seen through the trees.

"Louis, you're the one with the map, where's the main base? We don't want to be stuck down here, this ain't gonna tell is anythin' we don't already know."

The engineer shot Bill a look. It wasn't like military bases were programmed into these things. Still, he could probably make an educated guess.

Francis peered hopefully into the trees, but couldn't see any shambling figures. He stepped forward and felt something crunch under his boot. "Hey, there's a skull here. And more bones- and...more..." He'd remembered the thumps as the APV had ploughed out of the cornfield. He'd been cheering, if he recalled.

"Aw," Zoey said, not sure her mild reaction was terribly appropriate in regards to the bones littering the ground, "Gross. They just left them out here? Jeez."

She crouched down and poked a skull with the muzzle of her rifle, morbidly fascinated. Sure looked real. Kidnapping them and putting them through this was bad enough, but what about the people they'd grabbed up and infected? She didn't have anything to complain about.

"Maybe that way?" Louis said, pointing off to the right a ways, "Past Mercy. And the airport. It'd make sense if the base was some kind of central hub, anyway. I bet most of it is probably underground."

"Let's go then." Bill waited for Francis to take point, like he usually did. They were old hands at this by now. He didn't see any infected though, which made sense. "I guess they rounded 'em all up once they were done runnin' the simulations." Still, they wouldn't let their guard down. The farmhouse was still standing, just, its weatherbeaten boards splintered where a tank had pounded against it, all the doors completely torn off their hinges.

"It took us days at least to get this far last time," Francis pointed out. "I hate hiking, especially in the desert." He didn't actually sound like he meant it.

"It'll be faster if we don't have to keep stopping and hiding," Zoey said. They'd come prepared for an extended trip, anyway, but hopefully they wouldn't need to use much more than water.

It was eerie to walk through silent, derelict, and elaborate set that they had gone through, especially in reverse. They'd been through a whole hell of a lot, and the fact that so much of it had been orchestrated... it had seemed like pure chaos at the time. Like anytime they got one step ahead, something would happen to set them back again. But that had sort of been the point, hadn't it?

"You think they'd drug us when we slept in the safehouses?" Louis wondered, "You know, to set up the next spot. Hell, I don't think I ever checked out back the way we came in those once."

"We had no reason to," Zoey said quietly. She wasn't in the chattiest of moods, ears straining for the tell-tale signs of infected. So far so good, but she knew better than to trust it. They'd just climbed a giant steel fence and not so much as alarm had sounded. Something had gone wrong, they just couldn't see what yet.

Bill didn't say much, he was trying to work out where the gaps were, where the strings were being pulled from. He knew it would have taken certifiable paranoia to spot the setup, but he couldn't help but feel irritated that he'd missed so much.

"Hey, safehouse ahead," Francis called. He couldn't help speeding up, even though they didn't appear to be any immediate danger. The railway carriage was almost exactly how they'd left it, just rustier on the outside, and covered with dust on the inside. Bill ran his hand over the wall, wiping the dust off the writing. It had had them so convinced.

"We're gonna get to a dead end if we just follow our path blindly. They dumped us down here, there has to be other exits, other ways to keep an eye on us and release the infected."

"Mm," Zoey agreed, frowning and backing out of the train car, casting her eyes around the way they'd come. It looked different during the day, and the dying plants revealed more of the scenery around them. She remembered when they'd crept out of here. Exhausted but determined, they'd barely gotten halfway to the other disconnected cars before a horde swarmed up behind them. At that point they hadn't really been questioning where they were coming from, but now...

She ventured over into the withered underbrush, stepping carefully. Gravel crunched under her feet, grinding against the sand until, inexplicably, it was grinding against something metal instead.

"I think I found something," she called over her shoulder, crouching and moving gravel and sand away with her hands. KEEP HANDS CLEAR the block letters spray painted onto the steel said, DANGER.

No shit.

Louis wandered over and put a hand on top of his head, shaking it back and forth. Well, he'd always thought the damned zombies had come out of nowhere. They sort of had.

"This thing is huge," she muttered, clearing along the edge of some massive hatch.

"All four of us ain't gonna lift that," Francis said dubiously. "Maybe there's a door control."

"If there is, it'll be on the other side," Bill said eyeing the hatch with a thoughtful expression. "How many pipe bombs do we have?" As fascinating as it was to wander around these abandoned testing grounds, they were on a timetable, even if they didn't know how long they had.

"Six," Louis said, "But I don't know if they're strong enough to blow this up. It's probably a couple feet thick or some crap."

Zoey had decided that clearing off the entire hatch was a relatively silly idea and stood, wiping her dusty hands off on her jeans. She stepped out onto the hatch itself and stomped experimentally, not that she had any point of reference to gauge how thick it actually was by the sound.

"Worth a try," she shrugged. Setting off a bomb would do something, anyway, even if it wasn't to open the door. Maybe it'd set off an alarm or alert someone or something.

"I'll set off two," Louis said, raising his eyebrows at Bill for confirmation, "We can just duck back into the train car, I guess, in case it really does blow it to bits."

Bill nodded, "Let's give that a try." They retreated back to the train car, and waited for Louis.

Louis set to it quickly, setting up the pipe bombs along the groove between the hatch and the surrounding ground. Once he was happy with their placement he triggered them and ran for it, chased by the incessant beeping of the fire alarms he'd rigged to the explosives. They didn't beep for long before exploding, and he was the first to peep out, to check up on his handiwork.

The hatch hadn't moved, but a corner of it had buckled some, and plenty of surrounding gravel had been shifted. Francis walked out and kicked the edge of the hatch. "More explosives?" he asked.

"No," Bill shook his head. "We'll find another way out. All four explosives might not shift that thing, and there's a chance it just leads to a holding pen."

A vibration saturated the air, just for a moment. Bill frowned. "Anyone else feel-"

"Jesus, the hatch is moving!" Francis backed up as the hatch suddenly jumped half an inch before thumping back down.

"What, uh," Zoey raised her eyebrows, crouching down in front of the hatch a short ways in front of it, "Do you think there's something um, trying to get out? Or is it just fried electronics?"

"Hell if I know," Louis said, experimentally jabbing the buckled section with the butt of his rifle and jumping back.

The slab of metal jumped again, and a bolt snapped with a screech. From the gap issued a familiar roar.

"Tank!" Francis bellowed.

"Jesus Christ, move the fuck back, people!" Bill crouched down, trying to sneak a shot under the hatch, but to no avail.

Zoey didn't have to be told twice and she was already sprinting for the train car, the color drained from her face and her expression all business. Of_ course._ Of course there was a tank in the hatch. Why not, right? She scaled car and pressed herself flat, knowing that if she stayed still, she'd be able to pepper the tank with bullets while it chased the others around. That was her plan, anyway. Up and out of sight until she hit something important and it came tearing after her. But it'd be dead by then.

"You're shittin' me!" Louis exclaimed, backpedaling wildly, "What the_ hell!_"

Why hadn't they made molotovs? Well, they weren't fighting it yet. Maybe it couldn't get out. Yeah. And maybe he wasn't on a quarantined military base with three crazy ass white people, either.

Another bolt snapped, and Francis grinned madly. "It's gonna blow!" Just how spectacularly, he wasn't prepared for. With a final thump on the roof of its prison, the tank sent the hatch flying, the disc of steel sailing through the air. Bill dived sideways as it buried itself at his feet, throwing gravel high into the air. Francis took a chance and ran in as the tank hauled its bulk over the edge, firing his shotgun into its face before turning and running, without looking back, the tank's fist swiping the air behind him.

He really hoped no one had gotten too rusty since they'd last escaped.

The longer the tank was alive, the more likely it was that it would catch up to someone and seriously hurt them. She'd felt her heart leap into her throat when the hatch nearly crushed Bill, and now it was in her stomach as Francis (that big stupid _idiot_) ran right up to it before fleeing again, but once he was clear, she began to fire rapidly into the enraged infected's back. There was no place on the towering bulk that was better than another, and her only strategy was penetration, softening the same spot until her rounds started to actually make a difference.

Louis didn't have time to notice how the three of them fanned out in different directions automatically. Hell, he could already hear Zoey's rifle, and soon his own firing drowned hers out. He fired in short bursts, wary of just holding the trigger in case the tank decided it liked him best, ready to run.

Bill remembered how it had taken Louis a while to get the hang of burst firing. In those first few terrifying days the instinct was to hold down the trigger until whatever you were firing at stopped moving. His own rifle joined in the chorus, and the tank halted, turning around and levering up a chunk of concrete. Francis turned too, as soon as he realised the footsteps behind him had ceased. He emptied his shotgun into the infected's back, and with all four weapons trained on it, it eventually sank to its knees with a groan, and collapsed in a pile of shredded meat.

Francis walked back, reloading and trying to catch his breath. There was no way he was going to take up jogging, but maybe he should have spent more time in the pool swimming rather than watching tv.

Bill was peering down into the hole the tank had emerged from. Even from here he could hear shuffling sounds. "I reckon this's the way to go. Don't hear any alarms or nothin' though." Bill took one last look around before slinging his rifle over his back. "Well, let's see what's down there." There was even a few iron rungs set into the wall, presumably to help the infected get up and over.

Zoey exhaled a sigh of relief when the tank keeled over, and she joined the other three once it was clear the thing was dead. Climbing down into a dark, spooky hole without even being entirely certain where it went? Just like old times.

Since Francis was still breathing hard, Louis took it upon himself to go down first, flicking on the light mounted on his rifle before he did so. It was hard to beat the rush of killing one of those things, even if he felt a bit like crapping himself while they were actually fighting them. Louis made his way down the rungs easily, back to the concrete as he turned to face down whatever else might be in the corridor.

"Still alive?" Zoey called down after him, hopping down onto the rungs next.

The corridor they found themselves in stretched off featureless in both directions, lit at regular intervals by fluorecent lights. Further down, in both directions, a few infected shuffled around - they were all wearing uniforms. Most of them appeared to be techs, only a couple of soldiers stumbled over their own discarded weapons. Bill looked grim.

"Let's find the base," he said, "Christ, I hope there are still _people_ holed up in here somewhere."

Francis followed them down last. "Sure beats the sewer," he said.

"We can't be the only people crazy enough to not end up as zombie food," Louis said. While he'd rather not be wandering down dark corridors shooting zombies, at least it had a certain familiarity to it. Which was crazy, but he was going to have to accept it sooner or later.

"Think this tunnel leads anywhere useful?" Zoey asked, leery of their surroundings, "If we end up in a zombie holding pen, it probably won't be pretty."

"We still got pipebombs," Louis reminded her.

"The holdin' pens may be empty," Bill pointed out. "That tank came from here, not a pen." It looked like the corpses were running the morgue today. Bill picked the direction that would lead them further into the base and started picking off infected with his rifle. "Those soldiers'll have pistols," he said. And they wouldn't be needing them anymore.

"And to think, instead of looting corpses, I could be memorizing the ingredients for Beef Wellington," Zoey commented. She flicked a look at Francis. Maybe they'd take their adventure trip early, after this. What did she even _need_ a degree for when she had half a million in the bank? She was supposed to be doing stupid and crazy things for at_ least_ a few more years before she got boring.

Bill insisted that they move at a good pace, causing Francis to point out that he hated jogging. They did eventually come across some massive doors with 'Subject Pens' stenciled across them, but they were off to the side rather than blocking the way. Francis put his hand up to knock without thinking, and caught himself just in time.

Zoey snickered to let him know she'd noticed his near-mishap, and Louis glanced at her before looking at the biker. What had he missed?

"I'm sure there'll be more zombies along the way, Francis," she teased, "Don't start letting out _more _just because you're bored."

"With our luck there's a tank pen," Louis said, shuddering a little at the idea.

"Or a witch pen," Zoey said. She doubted they'd keep those sorts of infected in big groups where they'd in all likelyhood tear each other apart, so it was still actually funny to make jokes about. Well, she thought so. Louis looked at her like she was nuts, "I wonder how they wrangle that kind of stuff? This must be the most effed up place to work in the world."

"Pay is good," Louis smirked.

"Smile, kids," Bill said, nodding at a camera inset in the ceiling near one of the lights. Its electronic eye followed them as they walked past. "They know we're here now."

"I hate hidden cameras." Francis waved a finger at the camera purely as a matter of course.

Eventually the corridor met up with another one, the junction guarded by a little knot of infected. "Keep goin' this way," Bill suggested, "They'll all meet up eventually."

Zoey crouched and started picking off infected from a distance. She'd never been a fan of blind corners. Coupled with infected, it usually spelled some kind of disaster, and hey, it had been awhile since she'd been able to show off.

"How many hidden cameras do you think were outside?" she wondered absently, "I was only half looking for them. Guess they don't need to hide them down here."

"Man if they were taping that shit-"

"I so want a copy if they were," Zoey said.

"Hell no!" Francis declared, scowling. He hadn't thought of _that_.

Zoey shot Francis a questioning look. What was _his_ problem? It would be awesome to see themselves kicking zombie ass. She thought so, anyway. Louis remained silent, pretty sure there would be stuff on said hypothetical recordings he wouldn't want Rachel to see. Or Zoey.

"That shit needs to be edited," he muttered.

"Why? Were you picking your nose a lot?" she teased.

Bill rescued him. "Elevator ahead," he said, and glanced up at yet another camera. "We know how this goes." Unfortunately for them the elevator was guarded by swipe card access, and the little light glowed implacably red. The screen above the doors displayed 'Level 23'. For a few moments. The letters disintegrated and were replaced by a short scrolling message: TURN ON YOUR PHONE.


	19. Chapter 19

"I'm not trippin' right?" Louis asked quietly, eyes wide, "The elevator is tellin' me to turn on my phone?"

Zoey looked up at the camera with wide eyes, "Guess you should do what it says."

He dug it out of his pocket and turned it on, wincing at the cheerful chime it made as it powered on.

"Turn the ringtone off," she said warily, urgent.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm doin' that," he responded, quickly paging through the functions.

He got a call almost immediately, and the elevator sign returned to its original display.

Slater responded as soon as he picked up, "This is a bit unexpected, but boy am I glad to see you guys."

To the others, Louis said, "It's Slater," before responding to the man himself, "Well, uh, you know us. Wouldn't miss a zombie apocalypse for anything," he shrugged a little, "Any chance we can help prevent this one from spreading?"

"I hope so. Listen, there's a bit of a power struggle going on here at present. Top brass has evacuated. Our nominal superior is sending an extraction team to put you lot into quarantine, for all the good it'll do. I'm going to give you directions to the access shafts, the elevator tends to- well, you know already, don't you?" Slater talked fast, and it sounded like he was typing in the background. His voice held a strained, manic edge.

The intercom on the elevator suddenly came to life and another voice interrupted them. "Civilians: remain where you are. You have entered a contaminated zone. Remain calm and you will be evacuated."

Slater had obviously heard it on his end, because he swore and turned away from the phone to ask someone else how that had happened. "Okay, I know." He turned back to the phone. "His override accessed all intercoms. They're getting pretty riled up." A familiar howl echoed down the corridors. "Okay, forget the shafts. I'm sending the elevator. Follow the signs to the DELPHI Labs. I'll unlock everything on the way." Slater hung up, and the light on the elevator went green.

Louis jammed his phone back into his pocket and quickly gave the others a recap, eyeballing the elevator the whole while. When he'd finished explaining he shrugged a little, almost bemused.

"Guess we got a man inside," he said, flicking looks between both corridors. It was impossible to tell where the horde was coming from, exactly, the way the sound echoed down here, "Think we should pipebomb this lot, or save em' for later?"

Zoey was more worried about an extraction team than zombies. Considering how badly out of control things seemed to be here, she wondered if they'd even meet up with them. They might have their hands full dealing with zombies, too, and she was pretty convinced they were the best at it.

Bill pointed Francis and Louis to the other corridor and crouched down next to Zoey. "We'll see how bad it gets. If we can, save 'em, but I don't plan on gettin' overwhelmed here." The sign above the elevator started ticking down floors, and the howling grew louder.

"Here they come!" Louis called out, crouching down a few paces back from Francis so the biker could take advantage of his shotguns spread in the narrow hall. He made himself busy thinning the horde out from range so their side didn't get overwhelmed. The other corridor, Zoey noted with some satisfaction, hardly any zombies even made it to the end of the corridor. Between herself and Bill, it was more like they were at a shooting gallery than in real danger. Which wasn't the best way to think of things, really, because if any of the nastier infected popped up she would probably cease having fun. For now, though, she decided that she and Bill were winning.

The engineer looked over his shoulder furtively and called out, "Halfway here!"

"We might run out of zombies before it gets here!" Zoey called back. Long straight corridors made it rather trivial, all things considered. They had plenty of warning, and whatever the walls were made of, the zombies weren't busting them down like they had at Mercy.

"Too easy!" Francis grinned. He turned to say something further to Louis when the access hatch above their heads gave way, depositing half a dozen infected right in the middle of them. "Duck!" Francis warned, swinging his shotgun around.

"Aw-!" Zoey flattened herself before she could let loose with a choice curse for the surprise zombies, not keen on getting her head blown off. Louis shifted towards the far wall, keeping on the infected still charging them. It was tempting to constantly look at the number display but he resisted it. Okay, not that time, but for the rest of this little incident he would. At least he was busy enough that he didn't have to fight the urge to keep mashing the call button.

The waves of zombies eventually started slackening, and some turned around and ran the other way, as another noise filled the corridor.

"What the hell?" Francis shouted over the din. It might have been engine noise, but in the long corridors it sounded like the beginnings of an earthquake.

"The extraction team musta been on the surface," Bill called back. He glanced at the lift. There wasn't anywhere else to go if it hadn't arrived in time.

Now Louis _was_ pressing the call button. This was some kind of high tech facility, wasn't it? Why were the elevators so damn _slow?_

"Well if they're going to be zombie magnets, maybe that will trip them up some," Zoey said hopefully. Some military extraction team would be just as good at shooting things as them, but if they got swarmed it would at least delay them a little.

The noise reached a crescendo and the front end of what appeared to be an armoured jeep of some kind appeared at the end of the corridor. The infected in its way were bowled over and swept aside or under the wheels. "That's kinda cool," Francis said, approving of driving indoors. Even so, he put his back to the elevator doors, willing them to open.

They halted when they were about twenty yards from the group, and the noise decreased. The soldiers inside were in full biohazard gear; facemasks, gloves and boots sealed with tape. One of them motioned to the group, waving his hand down.

"They want us to put our guns down, I reckon." Bill said. The elevator pinged. The veteran threw them a salute and ducked inside.

Once they were all in, Louis was mashing the close door button next, a vaguely apologetic look on his face in spite of the situation. They were just doing their jobs. Once the doors shut he leaned back against the far wall of the elevator and closed his eyes, sighing.

Zoey's reaction was a bit different - she started to laugh. This was absurd on a few levels, and Louis sighing dramatically as they ditched the extraction team only added to it.

"What's funny?" Louis protested, frowning.

"Nothing," she insisted, attempting to get a hold of herself, "We probably shouldn't get too comfortable. They're gonna cut the power to the elevator or something with our luck."

"Looks like Slater's got control of most of the electronic systems. If they shut down the elevators they're trapping everyone down there." Although Bill suspected they were all but trapped anyway.

Zoey fidgeted impatiently while they rode the elevator. There were a lot of floors in this facility, more than she'd expected, and that meant a lot of employees. Perhaps her thoughts on the place being thin on zombies had been premature. She looked around at the three of them and couldn't stop smiling. Last time they'd all been on an elevator together they'd been huddled up, bleeding, leaning on each other and just generally terrified and miserable. But they hadn't been anywhere _near _close to giving up.

The elevator let out another ping when they finally arrived, the doors sliding open a moment later.

"I can't believe how much effort they've put into this," she said quietly, eyeballing the long corridor stretching out in front of them, "I mean, why would they test something this thoroughly if they didn't plan to use it somehow?"

"Doubt they'll bother after this," Louis said, "Even they couldn't keep it under wraps."

"Does that mean they're gonna stop payin' us?" Francis asked, downcast.

"If this thing gets out, there won't be a hell of a lot left to spend your money on." When the doors opened, there was a noticeable drop in temperature - the air conditioning here was apparently set to 'icy'. Directly across from the doors was a sign: DELPHI.

The camera above the lift followed them with its electronic eye as the exited. There were fewer infected here and the majority of them weren't wearing uniforms. They passed doorways leading off to conference rooms and computer labs, the glass doors revealing the rooms either empty or with a few infected. All the doors had swipecard access, and displayed little red lights indicating they were locked. One or two infected threw themselves at the glass as the survivors passed, but when Francis's instinctive shotgun blast in response didn't do more than pit the surface it became clear that ordinary infected weren't going to break loose.

The entire floor was obviously under some kind of emergency lockdown, as they soon ran into thick steel doors blocking their path. As soon as they approached, however, they opened before slamming shut as soon as they'd gone through. The six inch steel slamming together at his heels made Francis speed up a bit.

"He sure doesn't want us to stop and sightsee," he said, glancing up at the nearest camera.

If they went the wrong way, the doors just didn't open, and Slater kept the doors shut until they'd taken care of any infected in the area. Francis rolled his eyes, "Maybe he wants us to deliver his laundry, too."

"Francis, he's not immune. He's trying to maintain quarantine."

"Well, if he wants me to take a bath, I'm waitin' outside."

"Look, people!" Zoey called, pointing. Through several glass doors, figures could be seen, gesturing and waving. The glass doors nearest to them, labeled DELPHI in frosted laminate, opened. There didn't appear to be any facilities for baths.

Louis cracked a smile when he saw the waving people and returned it, feeling only a little silly. He mostly felt bad for the people holed up behind so many locked doors. Fair bet the virus didn't have a cure, or at least not one they had access to, and it was probably pretty damned scary to be surrounded by zombies knowing you could turn into one. It was messed up enough just being surrounded by zombies in general.

"I wonder if we'll get to meet him face to face?" Zoey mused as they walked through. She hadn't been to the conference they'd had with the Director, and she was rather curious about the man who'd seen to getting them two million in tax-free government payoff. And she wanted to ask him about that stupid cornfield because come on, that had been unnecessary.

"Yeah," the engineer nodded, "I'd like to ask him about the computers they got here."

"Pretty sure they aren't allowed to use their fancy network setup to play Counterstrike here, Louis."

"You never know," he grinned.


	20. Chapter 20

There were about a dozen people all told, mostly men, in the DELPHI labs. They all looked tired and pale, and only one of them was still wearing his lab coat: Slater. While the others hung back uncertainly, looking both relieved and apprehensive, Slater strode forward and smiled, making a point of shaking each of them by the hand.

"I can't tell you how happy I am that you all showed up. And surprised, I thought we were going mad when you showed up on the cameras," he said. "I've been trying to think of a way out of this mess, but all I can do is run simulations. And I'm not sure how good they're going to be." He waved them further in, "Make yourselves comfortable, if you can, we've been camping out here for nearly two weeks now. These labs were designed to withstand a nuclear blast, and it looks like all the failsafes are holding against the infected. We've got air and water indefinitely."

He addressed one of the other researchers. "Tell those upstairs that the survivors are here and safe. They can withdraw their extraction teams. We don't need any more casualties than necessary." He led them on past a rec room that now appeared to serve as living quarters, and called over his shoulder, "If they want to talk, tell them I'm in a meeting."

"I think you should meet DELPHI," he said quietly.

Louis nodded a little, raising an eyebrow, "Is it an AI? Or just a really powerful tool?"

It wouldn't have surprised him one bit if the government had finally developed real AI and decided to use it for something fucked up like a zombie simulator.

Slater seemed slightly surprised by the question. "It's just a simulator. A number-cruncher, if a very sophisticated one. If it had been an AI it might have advised us not to go ahead with all of this." He smiled bitterly and led them on.

Where he finally stopped was a room that felt like one of the underwater displays at an aquarium. The walls and ceiling consisted of a glass dome, although the liquid above didn't quite seem to be water. Shapes and sparks hovered in the solution, and wires trailed off, splitting off until they were too fine to see.

Awe was plain on Louis' face, jaw dropping as he took the 'computer' in. Computer wasn't even an adequate term for it. Screw fixing computers or keeping networks stables. He'd go to school for another four years (or however long it took) if he had to just to work on the thing of beauty in front of him.

"DELPHI," Slater said quietly. There were several chairs in the room, attached to workstations. All bar one of the computers were turned off. "It's a liquid-state processor. Mostly. It changes depending on what data is being used." He pointed to some dark encrustations, like coral, sitting on the glass. "That's the base data. The variables we don't change. Don't touch the glass, please."

Francis drew his hand back. "So what're the fish for?"

"They're...programs. But I really didn't intend to explain all of this to you. The real world is more important."

"You've got a plan, Slater?" Bill asked.

"I - no, not really. DELPHI can't simulate itself, so everything on the base is - well, your guesses are probably better than mine."

"What are you guessing?" Zoey wondered. The crazy fish tank computer was pretty rad, but if he wasn't keen on explaining it, then she was curious to know what he wanted them to do.

"You guys hiring?" Louis asked dreamily. She nudged him and he snapped back to reality a little, sheepish.

Slater looked pleased by Louis's response, but he shook his head. "I don't think you'd like the working conditions. If it weren't for all this other stuff, I'd be in jail for a long time just for bringing you down here." That seemed to remind him of the task at hand. "I do have an idea how you could help though. I want you to get my people out. They aren't going to risk sending an extraction team this deep, and I won't let them just be left here to die."

"Are they immune?" Bill asked, warily.

Slater shook his head. "It's not going to be easy. But they can't stay here. All this quarantine isn't helping anyone." He glanced up at DELPHI. "If the simulations are right, it's already out. I need data. And they know how and what to collect. DELPHI got us into this mess, maybe it can get us out. I've got control over this facility, mostly, but, there's now a warrant out for my arrest and they've cut my satellite links. DELPHI's only as good as the data going in. It's already about forty-eight hours out of date."

"You want us to smuggle a bunch of nerds out of this base?" Francis was incredulous. "If they get bitten just once-"

Zoey swatted the biker, shooting him a look. Smuggling nerds, _jeez_.

"What about you?" she asked Slater, tilting her head and frowning, "Who's going to get you out?"

"I'm staying here until this thing's over, one way or another. If they eventually come down and get me, that's a good ending, as far as I'm concerned. We've all seen the bad one. You've lived it."

She glanced at the others and shrugged a little. They couldn't just leave people down here in zombie hell, and they'd come all the way down, so why not?

"You think... I mean, they all have a pretty idea of what's going down right?" Louis said, "You guys have all... I dunno... watched us go through the motions a few times?"

He didn't want to leave anyone down here, either, but looking out for a group of non immunes wasn't really in his realm of experience. They'd always been pretty good at improvising he supposed, but there wasn't a very large margin of error when fucking up resulted in someone getting infected.

"Yeah, did you tape it?" she asked, remembering her thought earlier. After talking to Slater, though, she was doubting he'd sneak her a copy. Zoey frowned a little. There had been a group of dudes watching her every move, unbeknownst to her. Kinda gross.

"No one knows it's breached the facility yet. Even I don't, I'm going on what DELPHI tells me. We can't let it get to an epidemic stage. The simulations on that are not good. Even for you, long term."

"How the hell did it get out in the first place?" Bill asked. "Our simulations were over months ago. Unless you found another batch of civilians to test it on."

Slater shook his head. "They were working on a vaccine. They were using DELPHI to run most of the trials. The only way to tell if someone is immune is to deliberately infect them, so, they wern't too keen on trial and error. And, believe it or not, we don't deliberately infect people. Not until DELPHI gave us consistent results."

"Well your super-liquid brain must have screwed up somewhere," Francis pointed out.

"The trials never would have happened had DELPHI not existed. DELPHI isn't capable of quantifying the effects of its own existence. It causes feedback loops. The data was corrupted. I don't know the details, but the vaccine appeared to work. Even I got jabbed. The person they originally tested it on, the one and only live trial, was immune and we didn't know." He shrugged, "They got complacent. And the vaccine delays the onset of symptoms by several days. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Still is, really."

Francis scratched his head. "So your fish tank screwed up, you mean."

"Hang on, hang on," Louis held up his hands, frowning, "If you got no way of knowing who is immune and who isn't, what was the big idea throwing the four of us in with a bunch of infected?"

"We knew you were immune. None of that data had anything to do with DELPHI. Well, we didn't know you were immune, we knew you'd survive. All our simulated plague scenarios spat you four out as survivors, every time unless we deliberately manipulated the data to put one of you in another city. You were a huge and consistent anomaly in the results. That's why they decided to test you in the real world, to see if DELPHI was correct. You were the live trail for DELPHI."

"You guys need a hobby or something," Zoey said, perplexed, "Why even create a virus like that? Something so messed up that you have to kidnap people to make sure your computer was working right."

She bit her tongue against asking how he slept at night - he had done his best to help them, and had risked his job to get them compensated for what they'd been through. This whole thing wasn't his fault, after all, but he was a pretty easy target. Zoey shook her head, "If you put this much effort into medical science maybe we'd have more cures for stuff."

Louis shrugged a little at Zoey. It was kind of a moot point, wasn't it? He saw her point, but right now was a bit late to debate the morality of making a zombie virus. It existed, and it was crummy, and they had to escort some nerds out of the building.

"Do you really think this is what I wanted for DELPHI?" Slater asked her, almost despairing. "The potential here - we can prevent disasters before they happen. I thought the plague scenario was perfect. We could do so much, prevent the spread-" He shook his head. "They didn't create the original virus. They found it." He waved his hand, "Oh, they started modifying it - it mutates like lightning, apparently. But the original infected were from a town in South America. And then they were from a government facility off the coast of Canada. And then from a fishing village. Every time, they rounded up the infected, and burned everything else. Those things don't die. They just froze 'em and prayed that it didn't pop up again somewhere."

"And then, we created DELPHI. They reopened the file, originally just to run scenarios. At least, that's what they told me. But they thought they could control it, use it. We were all to blame. We thought DELPHI knew everything, and they thought they did, too."

The idea that the virus occurred in nature was pretty screwed up and Zoey grimaced. Well, they'd sort of had their hearts in the right place about it, trying to prevent it from becoming a massive, world-ending epidemic.

"Once we get your people out, then what?" she asked, "How can we stop this from spreading?"

"I don't know." He gave a helpless shrug, "If I can get some more data through DELPHI, then I can run some simulations. That's all I can do."

"I guess we should get to it, huh?" Louis said, returning his shrug, "What's the best way to go? Back the way we came or...?"

Much as he wanted to pick Slater's brain, they just didn't have the time.

"If they're not immune we're gonna want to avoid the infected as much as we can," Bill pointed out. He wasn't looking forward to babysitting a bunch of civilians, but like hell he was going to leave them down here.

"I've been thinking of that. Sit down, I'll show you some schematics. You know what the infected are like. They get into air ducts, and crawlspaces, you're the experts but I came up with a tentative route." He started tapping away at a keyboard and the monitors lit up, flicking through footage of more corridors, with various numbers of infected standing around in them. Bill pulled up a chair and lit a cigarette, frowning at the line drawings on Slater's monitor. Slater looked like he was going to object for a second, and then just shrugged. It wasn't like the smoke was going to effect DELPHI from there.

Francis watched the screens for a while, but didn't find them very interesting. Louis seemed hypnotized by DELPHI, and while Francis could appreciate that this particular fish tank was pretty cool, it wasn't holding his attention quite to that degree.

"Hey Slater, any food around here?" he asked.

"I'm afraid I don't have enough to share the supplies, but feel free to raid one of the vending machines."

Francis grinned and strode out, happy to leave the strategising to Bill.

"You know he's gonna smash it, right?" Louis asked quietly, turning his head when he saw Zoey go after him. Nobody was allowed to wander off alone in their group. He turned back to the screen, though like Slater, he was happy to trust Bill's take on their path.

Zoey looked over her shoulder once before completely leaving the room, nodding at Louis and taking quick strides to catch up with the biker. A snack sounded pretty good right about now. They'd had a good breakfast, but that had been awhile ago.

"I hope it's got M&M's," she said.

"You've seen how much money they spent on their fishtank. I reckon the vending machines here should have Belgian M&Ms or somethin' fancy like that."

As it turned out, there were M&Ms, but the standard American kind. Francis had gotten in a fair amount of practice busting open vending machines while they were in the simulated outbreak. And he cracked the butt of his rifle strategically against the door a couple of times and levered it open. "Lunch is on me," he grinned.

"I can't guarantee all our road trips are gonna be this interestin'," he said, starting work on the next vending machine. He preferred chips to chocolate. He was probably doing the nerds a favour too, since they hadn't appeared to be capable of busting open the machines themselves. He looked over at her and grinned, "It's good to be back on the job, ain't it?"

Zoey grinned back at him and nodded, munching on a few M&M's while he worked. So to speak.

"A road trip without zombies still sounds pretty good to me," she said, shifting slightly as she considered her next words, "Francis, I was thinking. I've got all this money, and all this freedom, and I have a lease at this apartment and I'm going to school, and it all feels so... I mean, why am I bothering _right now?_ I can always go back to school. I've barely seen any of this country, or any other for that matter, and why am I wasting my time doing all this stuff I can do _any_time?"

She watched him carefully as she spoke, unsure of what his reaction might be.

"So yeah, I was thinking once we're done rescuing nerds, we should just go for it," Zoey said, making a startled face, laughing, and quickly adding, "Go on a trip, I mean. Just... pick a city and get on our bikes and go."

A slow grin spread across Francis's face, like someone had just un-cancelled Christmas. He stepped forward, "Zoey, I-" He turned as voices echoed down the corridor. A few of their charges-to-be were approaching, looking both nervous and excited. "Musta heard me open the vending machines," he muttered. He turned back to Zoey, still grinning, "Definitely, okay? Don't you dare change yer mind. I'd never get over it."

"Okay," she grinned back. Her nose wrinkled a little, pleased that his reaction had been so positive.

"Lunch is served," Francis said with a wave of his hand at the vending machines. The researchers looked a bit nonplussed as they stared at the wreckage.

"Actually," one of them eventually said. "We were hoping you'd be able to give us some tips." He even had a notebook, and he wasn't the only one. "We saw the simulations, of course, but that's not the same."

Francis gave Zoey a dubious look. Was Bill going to yell at him if he told them the wrong thing? "Well, don't get bit. If yer not immune, and you get bit, yer fucked. And keep yer heads down, dammit. I hate it when people get in front of me." He opened another packet of chips.

She smirked slightly at his warning but nodded - it was sound advice, even if the delivery was a bit rough. As for advice giving, she didn't even know where to start. There was a hell of a lot to look out for, and learning it all the hard way had etched it in her mind. How did someone teach instinct?

"Well, I guess you know the basics if you watched us," Zoey shrugged, "Keep quiet, don't get bit, keep moving, stay with the group... all of that good stuff. If Bill tells you to do something, _do it_. And if Louis says he's got a bad feeling, get ready to run."

They weren't really going to write this down, were they? It wasn't like you could reference notes when a horde was bearing down on you. She tilted her head at the researchers and smiled a little.

"What was it like, watching us?" she asked curiously. Zoey still thought it was bizarre that a large group of people had, conceivably, watched over them twenty-four seven. Not in a benevolent fashion, of course, but still. Had there been a certain remove for them, like watching a tv show or a movie? Did they root for favourite characters? Have betting pools?

They glanced at each other trying to frame a response. "Exciting," one said eventually, "but nerve-wracking. Half the time it didn't look like you guys were gonna make it. I mean, they said they'd pull you out if you went down, but, that's easy to _say_."

"You were awesome," a young researcher with bleached blonde hair grinned at Zoey. "We were cheering for you guys all the way. It meant DELPHI worked too. I'm Matt, by the way."

"We'll try not to hold you back."

Francis just looked a bit bewildered. He'd never imagined he'd have a fan club quite like this.

Zoey laughed, a little embarrassed to called 'awesome' by anyone, and shrugged.

"In all seriousness," she said, "I don't think you'll hold us back. You know what happens if you make too much noise or stray too far. And you know that things can go wrong really, really fast."

She looked up at Francis, "Think we should see if Bill's got things worked out?"

It would be too easy to take a stroll down memory lane with the eager researchers, and they really ought to stay focused on the task at hand.

"Yeah, let's go." Francis grabbed some more chips in case Louis was hungry, although he did start eating one himself on the way. "Other than the fish tank, this place is really borin'," he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep his voice down.

"Did he just call DELPHI a fish tank?" one of the researchers asked another.


	21. Chapter 21

When they got back to the main area, everyone else was already there. There was a schematic of the facility on the wall, and Bill was pointing out various routes on it. Francis tossed Louis the other bag of chips and sat down. Bill was loving this he could see; he got to do a mission briefing.

He repeated the advice that Francis and Zoey had already given, a bit less dramatically. "If you pick up any weapons, don't use 'em unless you have to. We're gonna be assuming you're unarmed and we'll be standing in front of you. We're going out via the simulation area. It's about the only place that doesn't have any infected right now."

Slater stepped forward, "We're avoiding the facility on the surface for now. We all know we're not infected, and putting you all in quarantine will help no one, and it will leave DELPHI blind. The survivors have a jeep, and they'll take one of you back to get more transportation for the others. So you'll have a couple of hours waiting outside." He gave an oddly schoolboyish smile, "So, hats and sunscreen everyone." There was a polite chuckle from the group.

"We're leaving in fifteen minutes, so do what you gotta," Bill said. The group scattered fairly fast, people grabbing coats, and laptops, and all of them making a trip to shake Slater's hand or even give him an awkward hug. For all their hope and excitement, there was a fair amount of fear in the room too.

Louis ate from the chip packet Francis tossed him, offering some to Bill politely. Bill didn't strike him as a consumer of junk food but hey, beggars couldn't be choosers, right?

"Remember when finding a vending machine was like Christmas?" he asked the others. Zoey laughed quietly and nodded.

"After so much canned food, yeah," she smirked, "Maybe they took pity on us for complaining about the canned stuff so much."

"Man it's too weird to think about it that way," Louis said, "They were goin' for authentic zombie apocalypse. I'll leave it at that."

So long as their simulation was as authentic as it ever got, she was happy to leave things be. She felt for the researchers as they milled around, but every step forward would chase the fear away just a little bit more. That's how it had been for her, though she supposed being armed had helped a bit with that. Still, they were in good hands.

"Are we goin' back the way we came in?" Francis asked Bill.

"I'd like to, all things considered, but according to the cameras the army's still there. I ain't real keen on being shut up in quarantine either. We're takin' the lift up, but we're not going all the way. The floor below seems fairly clear, and we can take the stairs up and into the simulation area." Bill shrugged, it was the best they could do. There didn't appear to be a lot of infected, but as Slater had mentioned, they loved climbing into ducts and vents, and there were no cameras there.

Bill gave them their fifteen minutes and then rounded them all up. Slater shook the survivor's hands again. "Thank you for doing this. As long as my people are safe, I'll be satisfied. Good luck, all of you."

"You too, man," Louis said, giving Slater a firm shake, "Stay safe in here, all right?"

"Thanks for everything, Mr. Slater," Zoey said, smiling at him. Maybe it was a little bizarre, thanking him, but he'd done a quite a lot for the four of them. He deserved a thank you. She turned to the others and grinned a little, "All right, Autobots. Time to roll out."

Louis grinned and nudged her a little.

"Zoey, Francis, you're in front. Pick 'em off before they get close, if you can, Zoey. We're bein' extra cautious this time." They weren't likely to run into many infected on this level, as they'd cleared most of them out just getting in, but Bill was making sure that their charges knew where to stand and what to do before things started getting really hairy.

Bill and Louis would watch the back and sides and hopefully they wouldn't run into anything bigger than the ordinary hordes. Bill had given them strict instructions to throw themselves flat if a tank showed up. Hopefully the gunfire would distract it if the researchers kept their heads down.

Zoey couldn't help but feel at least a little tingle of excitement as they started out. Though escorting people who were probably not immune was going to be something of a challenge, it was something new, something to test herself on. She hoped their nervous charges kept all that they'd watched in mind as they wound their way through the corridors and back towards the lift. Except for maybe the telling jokes part, because they really ought to minimize talking and listen out for orders. Then again, maybe keeping things relatively light hearted might lessen the oppressive cloud of fear that seemed to be following them around.

While Zoey and Francis forged ahead, Louis kept a wary eye on the vents and ducts. Nothing could screw things up more than surprise attacks, and so he focused on minimizing the chance for surprises.

The infected still trapped in the locked rooms cause some consternation among the researchers, and they tended to bunch up on the opposite wall, even though there was no chance of the infected getting out. Bill didn't think that was a bad thing. All they could do was try and keep out of the way.

One or two infected managed to stagger out from somewhere, but they were easily dealt with. When they got to the elevator, they were faced with a different problem. A quick head count confirmed ten researchers and the four survivors. Quite a squeeze, in that elevator. Bill frowned.

"Okay, listen. The elevator noise gets 'em riled up, as you know. So we're goin' first. We'll clear out whatever gets attracted, and then we'll send one of us down to get you." He handed the blonde researcher a pistol. "Shoot 'em in the head. I'm not expecting anything, and if you see something bigger than normal run back to the nearest doors." He nodded at the camera, "Slater's watchin', he'll take care of ya."

The elevator was still on the ground floor, and it opened as soon as he pushed the button.

"Such service," Zoey said, stepping inside and looking up at the ceiling of the elevator. It looked sturdier than most, but she didn't fancy getting a metal grate and a hunter dropped on her head, so she kept to the side.

When the doors slid closed Louis fidgeted with his rifle a little, anticipating what would greet them when the doors opened again, "Hope they're okay down there."

"They should be," Zoey said, "I'd worry more about us."

Her biggest concern was completing the unspoken infected Bingo card. Part of her had been expecting to run into larger groups of the more advanced infected, but perhaps even the people here felt it was best to keep them to a minimum. If she never saw a witch again, she didn't think she'd be terribly disappointed.

Bill didn't need to tell them to brace themselves. All the infected that would be drawn by the arrival of an elevator would be waiting for them as soon as the doors opened. Francis crouched down at the doors next to Louis, his eyes on the display above as it counted up. They were only going up twenty-six floors this time. Slater had told them that the levels directly below the simulation grounds tended to be little more than holding pens and ducts for the various feeds from the simulation. The holding pens were empty. All the infected had been cleaned out once the survivors had been sent home, and now that the simulation was over, there would have been minimal staff there.

The second the elevator let out a pleasant and mild _ping_, Louis lashed out with his rifle, shoving the gathered infected back and away from them. Too many bodies crushing in on them would force them back, and though the elevator wasn't small, every inch counted. Zoey was already firing into the crowd, her rifle rounds lancing through more than one infected the way they were all stacked up, and he started to fire as well, aiming for legs in the hopes of keeping the mob somewhat at bay. Corpses weren't much more than stumbling blocks to the other infected, but there was a method to the madness here. Even though he hadn't liked leaving the others down there, he realized now that they'd only been in danger if they'd all squeezed inside.

Even though he'd been waiting for it, Francis was still staggered by the press of infected bodies. Gross. He started firing, at this range he turned limbs into mince meat. Four guns firing on one elevator was deafening. He pushed dying infected off him as the corpses started to pile up, and reloaded. He could hear Bill firing over his head, and he wiped gore out of his eyes. Not that there was anything to see. Just a mass of bodies.

"Pipebomb?" was all Zoey asked, shouting over the din. It was impossible to tell how many damned infected were crowded in this hallway, but it would take ages to shoot through all of them. Though they were well stocked, it didn't hurt to be cautious with their ammo.

"Toss it!" Bill ordered. Hopefully they wouldn't be swarmed by so many again. Francis ducked beside the wall in anticipation of detonation.

"Fire in the hole!" she shouted more out of habit than necessity. Though some of the closer infected were too fixated on them to peel off, those that didn't have immediate access to a warm body turned and charged the beeping tube. It exploded shortly afterward, the cramped space erupting into a shower of gore that left bits plastered to the ceiling, blood and chunks dripping off in the aftermath.

"Gross," Zoey observed.

Louis felt sorry for the researchers more than anything. Nothing allayed fear like slogging through blood and guts in a narrow hallway, right?

Francis laughed. "Awesome!" Now that was far more exciting that using them to shift hatches. He straightened up and started kicking the corpses out of the doorway. They still had to get the lift moving, after all.

"You go down and get 'em, Francis," Bill said. He stepped out into the corridor, ignoring the light rain of gore that splattered his shoulders and hat. The hallways in both directions looked pretty clear. On the bright side, the elevator had probably brought everything nearby out of hiding. He nodded at the camera, which was panning the corridor, apparently undamaged.

As soon as the doors were clear of corpses, Francis punched the button for the ground floor.

Louis offered Francis a wave as the doors closed and did his best to avoid getting dripped on with minimal success. Zoey had her hood up, a disdainful expression on her face.

"Which way are we going?" Zoey wondered, brushing off a particularly big chunk that landed on her shoulder, "Eugh, I never thought I'd be scrubbing zombie off of me ever again."

Bill just pointed silently down the corridor.

When the lift doors opened Francis was surprised to get a gun shoved in his face. "Oi!"

"Sorry!" Matt quickly pointed it away and handed it back with an apologetic look. "We weren't sure what was coming down in the elevator."

Francis gave the blond researcher a dubious look and waved them inside. "Well, here's the thing. The infected can't open doors, and they can't use elevators either." They were halfway up when he remembered the gore. "Oh yeah, there's a lot guts and stuff out there, so, uhh, just warnin' ya. And if ya gotta puke don't do it on me."

When the doors opened he stepped out smartly, just in case. None of the researchers were sick, but a few were looking rather green by the time they all stumbled far enough down the corridor that they _weren't_ being dripped on.

"No problems?" Bill asked. Francis shook his head. "Let's keep moving, people. We're goin' down the corridor here then left, and up one flight of stairs. And then out through the nearest holding pen. Slater's got the doors, so we won't be locked in." And that was that, Bill herded them as effectively as any sheepdog and nodded at Francis and Zoey to get the peculiar procession started.

They hadn't gone more than fifty yards when they heard a familiar sobbing sound. Francis held up his hand to call a halt and looked at Zoey with raised eyebrows. "You hear that?"

"Witch," she whispered back, her eyebrows doing the opposite of his. Zoey flicked her light off and started to move forward, tentative and careful. She was the quietest, and she'd peered around more than one corner without getting her head ripped off.

"Everyone shut up," Louis said quietly, resisting the urge to suggest that they just hold their collective breath until Zoey found out where the damn thing was. It was usually her and Bill that scouted out witches, the two of them being rather stealthy individuals. Francis couldn't help being loud, and Louis knew he was too damned twitchy to properly stalk.

Zoey got to the end of the corridor and paused, back to the wall, listening. It was definitely around the corner, or at least in a room very near her, and with an almost painful slowness she started to peek around the corner.

Louis held his breath. If she pissed off the witch, there was a chance she could throw herself flat and Francis could just blow its damned head off before it got her. Goddamn, he hated witches. He hated all infected, really, but right now witches were the worst.

They could only watch Zoey as she went forward to scout. Their charges were inexperienced but not ignorant, and at the mention of witch they all grew gratifyingly quiet and still. They'd seen what had happened in the simulations.

The witch was several feet from the corner. She had an assault rifle next to her, and wore the tattered remains of uniform. She looked up sharply when Zoey looked around the corner, her cries hiccuping into a growl. She had her back to Zoey, however, and hadn't spotted her.

Though her instinct was to yank her head back, she retreated slowly and pinched her finger and thumb close together to indicate that the witch was very, very close to the corner. She didn't dare move until the growling subsided and cautiously retreated back to the group. Their options were very limited in such close, cramped quarters, and it was the only way they could go, so they'd have to think of something quickly. The longer they lingered, the more likely more infected would start popping up.

Hit and run wasn't viable, not in such cramped quarters and with a gory, slippery mess on the escape route. That left the two less desirable options, however. Firing Line or the Francis Manoeuvre. The former involved just hoping the witch died before she got to them, and the latter depended wholly on Francis' ridiculous luck when it came to just charging into things and aiming for the head. Both had the potential to go horribly, horribly wrong.

"Plan?" she whispered, mostly to Bill.

Bill glanced at their charges who were huddling up against the wall. He couldn't risk having the witch run by them. Even if they were only clipped by her claws it could be enough to infect them. He sighed and nodded at Francis. Francis grinned back and made a show of checking that his shotgun was loaded. Trust the big idiot to _enjoy_ this sort of thing.

Because he couldn't see exactly where the witch was until he went around the corner, there would be an uncomfortable amount of guesswork involved. Bill moved around the group of researchers, lining up a clear shot should Francis miss, because guaranteed he'd end up with the witch on top of him. At this range there was nowhere to run.

Francis didn't wait around long enough to think about it. He raised his gun and strode around the corner and fired twice. The witch screamed and growled horribly, but didn't fall silent. Two seconds later Francis hit the wall behind him as the witch hurled herself at him.

Louis spoke for all of them with an, "Oh, shit!" before opening fire, Zoey chiming in with a, "_Francis!_" for good measure. The response to seeing a witch on any of them was immediate and urgent. A hunter was one thing, their razor sharp claws could do serious damage if they really got going, but a witch had the potential to eviscerate, to horribly maim.

Crowded hallways weren't the best for getting a good shot with a scope. Zoey set her jaw and took aim, wary of accidentally blowing the biker's brains out if either party jigged around too much in her sights. She fired, and the witch dove for Francis, and she made a substantial hole in the wall.

"Fuck," she hissed, forcing herself to focus, to readjust her aim. Goddamn Francis and the stupid Francis Manoeuvre-!

Zoey reacquired her target and fired again, and this time the round sank into the infected's temple instead of the wall.

The witch finally fell silent, and Francis used his shotgun to shove her off. "Never mess with a woman in uniform," he groaned, examining various gouges in his arms that were bleeding freely. She'd taken a swipe at his face too, but had mostly missed, so it looked like someone had drawn lines on it with a red pen.

"Is it dead?" one of the researchers asked shakily, "because we need some help." The gunfire had brought another infected down the corridor from behind them, and Matt was fending it off, swinging his laptop bag gamely every time it ran at them.

Louis was on it quickly, jogging up alongside Matt and giving the infected a solid shove before he put a few rounds into it. He looked at the man with concern once he was certain the thing wasn't going to get up again, "You okay man?"

With Louis on the case, Zoey turned her attention to Francis with a raised eyebrow, first aid kit already in hand.

"That was pretty smooth," she teased. Lecturing about safety at this stage was a bit stupid. They were in a government complex crawling with zombies, there really wasn't anything remotely safe about what they were attempting to do. He'd lived, and that's what counted, even if he had gotten the crap slashed out of him.

"N-no," the researcher replied, staring at Louis with wide, terrified eyes. "He- it came up behind us."

Bill had been watching Zoey patch up Francis but at that tone of voice he turned and joined Louis. "What happened?"

"It bit him," one of the others said.

He turned and presented his shoulder. Blood was seeping through his shirt in a nice bite-shaped pattern. "I...gonna sit down." He didn't, but he did lean against the wall, while the other researchers simultaneously tried to cluster around and lend support and give him space.

"Hell," Bill said quietly.

Francis peered around Zoey, wondering what the fuss behind her was about. "Tough crowd."


	22. Chapter 22

Louis looked horrified, feeling an instant gnaw of guilt. Jesus, they'd barely gotten going and one of them was already bit. He'd just... the witch had been a distraction, and his instinct had been to help Francis, and...

"Guys you... you shouldn't get close," he said, voice tight, gripping his rifle, "In case... just stay away from him for minute."

"Oh, no," Zoey said softly, putting a hand to her mouth. She pulled it away quickly - her hands were covered in Francis' blood - and she was struck once again by how important it was for them to keep this from getting out. This wasn't the sort of thing people ought to go through. Maybe a small handful of people like the four of them could somehow process and cope with it, but most people couldn't. They were escorting a group of said 'most people'.

"He's been immunized. We all have." One of the researchers piped up.

He nodded, "It delays the onset of symptoms for a day or two."

"Maybe you'll turn out to be immune." The optimism sounded forced, and he smiled wanly.

Bill didn't look very happy at the news. That just made things more complicated. They couldn't leave him down here, and they couldn't wait two days to find out if he was actually infected either.

"I'll turn myself in," Matt said, pushing himself off the wall. "I'll just walk back to the quarantine station on the surface. I want to help get us out."

Francis didn't say anything, just watched the drama unfolding. Well, what were the odds that they'd get them all out unbitten in the first place? Bill nodded, "All right, kid. If he starts to act up, let us know." He glared at the others, impressing upon them the fact that for now their colleague was not to be trusted. "Keep goin', we've wasted enough time here."

Zoey felt a bit ill. She'd had the utmost confidence in their ability to do this, and maybe it had been a little too optimistic to think that way. Still. If she let it get to her, it might turn into some unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy. The guy might be fine. He might not. They weren't going to be down here for two days, not if they were doing it right, and so she wasn't going to dwell on that. Louis still looked pretty upset about it, but she knew there was no changing that. He dealt with things differently, and so long as he kept it together, she wouldn't try to convince him to stop looking so damn guilty.

"Well, at least we got the worst bits of zombie bingo out the way," Zoey muttered quietly. Not that she thought zombie bingo would apply to this situation - this was where the monsters were made. There was a very real chance they'd end up walking into another one of the nastier infected. God, she hoped not.

It was a very subdued and quiet group that scurried along between the four survivors. They met no further infected until they got to the stairs, and Francis drew the short straw, being injured, of looking after the group while the other three cleaned out the stairwell. The stairs spiralled downwards for floors, and Bill guarded the way to the lower levels, as any number of infected could be below them as the researchers were filed through to the floor above.

They were getting desensitized to gore now, which was probably a good thing, as both the survivors and the unsuccessful extraction team had been here already.

"We're goin' back the way we came," Bill said quietly. "It should be pretty clear from here on out. Keep an ear out for the military though. We don't want to turn this into a hostage situation." Willing hostages or not, the army was a complication they didn't need.

Despite the fact they'd cleaned the area out only a few hours before, a few infected had found their way back.

"They need to put a longer respawn timer on this trash," Louis commented glibly, earning an appreciative snicker from Zoey. Somehow, it always came back to the jokes that kept them going. She was pretty sure they could be surrounded on all sides, nearly overwhelmed, possibly even totally screwed and they'd be cracking wise up until the very end.

"Nah, if they did that they'd have to make the bosses harder," she said.

"Man, don't even joke about a boss," he said sourly.

"It's cool, it'll have a flashing red spot. Easy."

A few of the researchers smiled appreciatively at the exchange and Francis glanced at Bill and rolled his eyes. Goddamn nerds.

They eventually arrived back at the hatch that the tank had torn open. "Listen," Bill said, "when we came through it was pretty empty up there, but this's been here a while now, so we ain't necessarily out of the woods."

"How are we going to get over the wall?" Francis asked. They'd climbed up on the jeep to get in.

"We'll try and find something, but if we can't we're just gonna have to help each other up."

Francis glanced at Louis. Well, he could guess who was going to be the ladder. "Let's keep an eye out for crates or somethin'."

Bill glanced at Matt, "And you-"

"I know. I can't go over. I'll make my way back through the simulation areas. Slater can contact them and tell them where to pick me up once you guys are out." He seemed pretty calm, if a bit stunned still. He was probably having trouble believing what had happened.

Bill nodded, "There's a dead tank out there too, just warnin' ya. Up you go, Louis." Francis scowled. A few little lovebites from a witch and Louis got to have all the fun now?

"Fantastic," Louis muttered. He wasn't quite so eager as Francis to get into trouble, but he did as he was told just the same. Zoey moved to cover behind them, figuring she'd be more useful aiming down the long corridor stretching behind them than point blank up top.

"Looks clear up here," he called down a moment later, "For now anyway. Come on up."

Louis hoped no infected would make a liar out of him, scanning around the hatch for charging infected.

It was heading on for late afternoon, but other than the shadows creeping across the ground, nothing much had changed since they'd descended into the facility. The tank was still there, and starting to smell a bit off-putting after being in the sun for most of the day. They were still going two-by-two and Francis followed Louis up, inhaling appreciatively of the desert air.

"Glad I'm outta that hole," he said, beckoning the first of the researchers up.

Louis kept a sharp lookout while Francis got the researchers to start filing up, and Zoey was the last up and out. Once she was above ground he switched to watching the hole, letting her scan the area with her scope. She didn't find anything, at least not immediately around them, and she looked to Bill. This was the home stretch and there hadn't been any sign of infected up here.

"Let's pick up the pace," Bill suggested, "We don't want to be stuck out here after dark."

The researchers, despite bearing a potentially fatally infected in their midst, looked about with interest and a certain amount of amusement. "We always wanted to get a proper look at these areas," one of them confided to Louis. With the end in sight, and the infected behind them, spirits lifted. Bill didn't cease to be ever vigalant, but Francis soon turned his attention to the end of the journey, and upon finding an empty steel drum, started rolling it in front of him. They'd thank him when they had to get over the fence.

"We didn't really get a good look at them either," Louis said dryly, but not without good humor, "Kinda loses its impact during the day, though, I gotta say."

He didn't dare mention anything about a lack of zombies, either. Louis knew how that worked and he'd have no part in it.

"You must've gotten at least a decent idea of how it was, though," he said after some thought, "I'm guessin' you've got the place crawling with cameras."

"Yeah, but we weren't allowed to just sit around and watch," he smiled wryly, "we did have research to do. We spent a lot of time counting infected past checkpoints and things like that. We weren't running the simulation, we're just the DELPHI team, well, we were."

"I guess our jobs are the least of our worries," Matt said, reaching up to touch the wound on his shoulder and stopping himself. Bill had been keeping a pretty close eye on him, but he hadn't spotted any signs of infection. Yet.

"Finally!" Francis spotted corn, and he straightened up from his barrel-rolling. He looked about, and satisfied that the way was clear, he picked it up, and started carrying it, not without some effort.

Louis had been winding up to make a crack about them keeping tallies on how many times Francis said he hated something, but the blonde's comment caused him to clam up.

"Almost there," Zoey told them quietly. So far, so good. Once they made it to the wall they were more or less home free. All but one of them, anyway. That was keeping her from savoring an impending victory.

"Heard that before," Louis teased lightly. The corner of her mouth quirked up slightly.

They made their way over the fallen cornstalks, and Francis thumped his barrel down into the dirt next to the gate. He was tall enough to pull himself up on top and he stayed up there to give people a hand over.

Bill turned to the bitten researcher, "I can't risk lettin' you over the fence, kid," he said softly.

He nodded dumbly. "I know. I'm gonna follow the fence back on this side. It's not too far back to the base, and I'll be okay." He smiled wanly and his colleagues gathered around him to wish him luck and bid him farewell.

"Good luck, man," Louis offered quietly. Zoey only managed a wan smile. She hoped he'd be all right. It was so easy to take the immunity for granted. Even though it hadn't been quite real, she remembered being terrified when she'd first been bitten. Not knowing if you were going to be a shambling, screaming monster or not wasn't the best feeling. She hoped he'd be feeling the relief she had in a few hours, when nothing happened.

Zoey took a hand up from Francis, and Louis was next, offering to help people up as well while Zoey stood guard on top of the fence. She glanced down at the jeep and then back out at the zombie obstacle course, occasionally peering after the man that had broken off from the group.

Chewing his lip he waved at them and started walking fast, back the way they'd came, detouring around the farmhouse. Bill stood guard until the researchers had been pulled over, and there were smiles and sighs of relief all round when they gathered next to the jeep. Bill accepted Francis's hand and they were out.

"Wow, that was easy," Francis said.

"It ain't over yet," Louis said warily. He eyed the wall off like it might come alive and try to eat them.

Bill was eying the number of seats in the jeep. They certainly hadn't planned on picking up a dozen hitchhikers. "How about this," he suggested, "we'll take two of you back. It's gonna be a squeeze, but that way you can come back with two vehicles and it'll only take one more trip. I figure we might get unwanted attention if we have folks hanging off the sides."

"You guys have a cellphone on you?" Zoey asked the group, eying Louis. If they were going to leave some of them to just bake in the sun, having some means of communication might ease their minds a little. Louis frowned at her. No way was he giving up his iPhone. Rachel had gotten it engraved! She'd kill him.

Half a dozen phones were produced. "We're not allowed to call out from the base, usually," they explained. "Slater overrode those protocols to call you guys when you were waiting near the lift."

Louis looked immediately relieved. His iPhone was safe.

Zoey was digging into her pack and she passed out some water bottles to those who would be staying behind before she piled into the jeep, taking a hit for the team and scrunching up against the door. She didn't take up a lot of room, but this was going to be a long ride all crammed up.

Two of the researchers crammed into the back, both apologetically trying to give Francis as much room as possible, while the others huddled against the gate, sitting down in the dust to wait for rescue. They called out their thanks as Bill started the jeep, and Francis gave them an offhand wave in response.

They drove back towards the setting sun, along deserted roads.

"Roll credits," Louis said quietly.

"Don't count on it," Bill responded.


	23. Chapter 23

Francis was nodding off by the time the lights of Gasoline started to glow on the horizon. Bill yawned, the days on the road finally catching up with him.

"Nearly there," Bill told the passengers in the back seat.

"Thank fuck," Francis mumbled. "I can't feel my legs."

He put his head to the window and peered out at the row of red tail lights on the road in front of them. Trapped between the door and Francis, Zoey muttered when he leaned over and squished her even more, shooting him a mutinous look. She was tired of being the car.

"Who knew this place'd have a rush hour," Bill commented.

"There's a semi parked across the road," Francis said. He wound down the window and tried to get a better look, but the slipstream just made his eyes water.

"What's going on?" one of the researchers asked, his eyes wide. The unknown was likely bad news.

"Shit, that doesn't look good," Louis said rather obviously. He leaned forward in his seat and tried to sit up a bit more to get a better look. Louis glanced over at Bill, and then in back, wary, "You don't think it's out already, do you?"

"No way," Zoey said adamantly, "We didn't see any up top. It's... probably the extraction team or something like that."

"It's a fuckin' road block," Francis said. "I hate cops."

"I ain't waitin' around for 'em to check our licenses," Bill declared, and turned off the road. The jeep protested as they went over the ditch by the edge, but it hauled them up the other side without effort.

"Where are we going?" the researcher asked, "we can't just abandon the others."

"We won't," Bill assured him. "Once we're in town we'll give you the jeep and we'll stick to the plan."

"And we'll head for the border," Francis said, grinning from ear to ear.

"Taco Bell at a time like this?" Zoey quipped, rolling her eyes and smiling.

"Where _are_ we gonna go after this?" Louis wondered, flicking a look at their passengers. They were cool, he supposed. It was okay to talk plainly in front of them. They knew zombies weren't crazy, anyway, "Back home?"

"Let's worry about that later," Bill suggested, as they bumped over rocks, circling around to approach Gasoline from the north.

Zoey watched out the window, mostly because she had nowhere else to look crushed up against the door like she was. She had already made her '_Are we there yet?_' and '_Francis is on my side!_' jokes awhile ago, so now she was just waiting to be free of the confines of the vehicle. She picked up her head when she heard a soft chime. Louis was fiddling with his phone, sending Rachel a text to assure her he was fine and that he'd call her soon. Zoey smiled a bit to herself. It was lucky, she felt, that Rachel had swallowed this whole zombie conspiracy thing without much trouble. She bet it was nice for him to have someone completely normal to come home to.

As for herself, when she got home, she had some stuff to wrap up for her road trip. Dropping her classes, first and foremost, something her parents would likely further protest. They'd already been extremely unhappy with her move, even less pleased that she'd signed some mysterious document and not divulged its purpose. When they found out she was going on a cross country road trip on a motorcycle with a middle aged man...

She smirked and adjusted her seat slightly, the action useless and just jarring Francis instead of making her more comfortable. Zoey muttered a quiet apology.

Francis responded with an absent nod. He'd gone very quiet after his suggestion that they head for the border. The sight of cops had reminded him that he still was on parole, and he didn't want to think about how many different ways he'd just violated the terms. One for every gun in the car, at least. Life was just getting good; he did _not_ want to go back inside.

Bill drove them through the outskirts and back to the car hire place.

"Everybody out."

"We might want to leave town," Francis suggested. Although he had no idea what was on the other side of Gasoline - more desert, most likely.

Zoey got out of the car and stretched with relief, watching Louis deal with the clerk so he could get the keys to his own car back.

"Head back to Pittsburgh?" she suggested, reaching her laced-together fingers up towards the sky a moment before letting her arms drop to her sides. She looked to the researchers, "What do you guys think is going on? Is there any protocol here in Gasoline for if things go wonky on the base?"

Not that she thought they were privy to that sort of information, but it was worth a shot. She didn't think they ought to stick around town either.

"We can hope so." Was the reply. Very reassuring it wasn't.

Louis returned, tossing his keys up in the air once before snatching them, and raised his eyebrows.

"What's the plan?" he asked.

"We'll head back to the motel, grab our gear," Bill said. "Try not draw too much attention." They were lucky the town was practically deserted; all four of them looked like extras from, well, a zombie movie.

"We're going to head back," the researchers said. "Thank you, all of you. We'll be keeping in touch. As soon as we connect DELPHI to the rest of the world, you'll be hearing from us." They all got their hands shaken, again.

"You mean we gotta walk back to the motel?" Francis scowled.

"Figure you need the exercise," Bill said, leaving water and his first aid kid in the jeep, and shouldering his rifle. "Besides, we ran across Pittsburgh. Three blocks ain't gonna kill ya."

They watched the jeep return to the desert and started walking back. Francis looked longingly at the burger tank as it came into view, but Bill kept them to shadowed streets. Bill breathed a sigh of relief when they made it back to the carpark out the front of their motel. Their vehicles were just as they'd left them, and all was quiet.

Louis was more focused on his phone than the carpark, absently following along as he tapped away at another text to Rachel.

"Bet I can get ready to go faster than you," Zoey challenged Francis, already starting to walk faster, grinning and ready to break into a sprint. Riding in the back of the jeep had been miserable, but the prospect of riding her bike was warming her up to travel again fairly quickly.

"Oh yeah?" Francis grinned and tried to elbow her out of the way. Bill shook his head, if she wanted to flirt with him he supposed she was old enough to make that decision.

The heavily-armoured and armed men who appeared from behind Louis's car put a stop to the fun.

"Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your heads," came the order, slightly muffled by the helmet. Francis had swung his shotgun up at the movement, but as soon as he'd seen cops rather than infected he'd dropped it, and was already following orders.

"Do what the cops say," he ground out.

Louis gaped in surprise, jamming his phone into his pocket before he lowered his weapon. He doubted very much they were going to let him keep the former. He watched Zoey crouch and lay her rifle down too, lacing her fingers behind her head.

"Easy, son," Bill bent and put his rifle on the ground before stepping back. "They're not cops," he told Francis. "They're military police."

"And you four are going into quarantine."

Zoey swallowed and shifted her stance a little, uncomfortable with the situation.

"We're immune," she protested. The worst trouble she'd been in was being pulled over for speeding, and she'd gotten out of that with a pouty face and big eyes. Somehow she doubted that would work here. What else could they say? Was it worth it to mention the escort? Maybe not. They might chase them down or something, and she wasn't sure how well that would work out for anybody. She'd leave it up to Bill, to say what the hell they were doing. If these soldiers were even interested in that.

"Then you'll be let out soon enough. We can't take that risk." He said something more quietly presumably to a radio, and an APV, maybe the same one that had rescued them from the simulation, rolled around the corner.

"Oh, weak," Zoey mumbled to herself.

Once their weapons were on the ground, the other MP walked up and patted them down, taking away pistols they'd retrieved from corpses down in the facility, and Bill's army knife. It was impossible to see their expressions under the protective gear they were wearing. Then they were ushered into the vehicle, and once again found themselves on steel benches, separated from the section up the front by inches of solid metal.

Louis slumped down in his seat and sighed wearily. Nervous and apprehensive about just what the hell they were in for now, he started to twist his wedding band in a slow circle in an attempt to distract himself. He hoped Rachel didn't worry too much. Sometimes he worried she might decide that all of this sort of craziness was just too much, but he was hoping that it would all be behind them by now.

"This is so_ dumb_," Zoey said mutinously. She glared at the steel separator. Jerks.

"You think they're gonna rescind their whole payoff thing for this?" Louis wondered, sounding rather glum.

Zoey raised an eyebrow, "If anything they should pay us _more_. For doing them a favor. Come on, Louis. It'll be okay." She offered him a smile despite her poor mood and he half-mirrored it.

"Not a word about what we've been up to, alright?" Bill said seriously. "These people are not on Slater's side. If this thing gets out, he's our best chance of fighting it."

"Besides, if they do, it's not like you can't live off half a million for awhile, you know?" she said, though she did flick a look at the biker, "Maybe rent out your guest room to Francis, though."

"_Hell_ no, you can rent _yours_ out," Louis started to come around as the APV bumped along. He regarded Francis with a dubious expression, "I wanna get the deposit back on my place. What's he gonna pay me with, empty beercans?"

"You can pay me with jar opening and reaching things on top of the fridge," Zoey grinned broadly at Francis, wrinkling her nose in amusement. This was _much _more like them, she thought. Just because things looked bad didn't mean that the jokes had to stop. Louis arched a brow. She had it all worked out, huh?

Francis stopped staring at his boots and offered her an amused look, "Hell, I even do the dishes every couple of months."

Without warning the APV suddenly made as sharp a turn as it was capable of to the right, and Francis nearly slid off the seat.

"What the hell do they think they're doin'?" Bill tried to peer in the little square of perspex that afforded an almost useless view of the front. They were going at some speed and above the roar of the engine several loud pops could be made out. "That ain't good," Bill said, getting back into his seat and holding on.

"You_ gotta _be shittin' me," Louis protested as he righted himself, posture straight when he sat back down.

"Well, uh," Zoey grimaced and tried to peer outside as well, "I guess_ beginning_ the zombie apocalypse inside a rescue vehicle is a better start than we had, right?"

That didn't actually make her feel better. At all. Mostly for the reason Francis voiced directly after her statement.

"Are you kidding? We have no weapons, and we're trapped inside this goddamn tin-"

Francis's tirade was cut short when everything lurched, as though some angry giant had picked up their tin can and given it a rough shake to check and see if there was anything left inside. The four of them were thrown up against the back wall of the cabin in a tangle of curses and, by the time they'd started to sort themselves out, the engine had gone silent.


	24. Chapter 24

"Everyone okay?" Louis asked as he readjusted his tie. Everyone _looked_ okay. They weren't in an okay _situation_, but he was taking small steps, here.

"Yeah," Zoey said, scooting back from the jumble she'd recently extracted herself from. Maybe she should have spent some of her payoff money on ninja school because, without guns, they weren't going to get very far. Assuming their wipe out was zombie related, but what_ else_could it possibly be?

"I'm fine," Bill said shortly. He'd been closest to the wall and had ended up on the bottom of the pile. He dusted off his beret.

"Any ideas how to get out of this sardine can?" Francis asked, knocking thoughtfully on the wall. Something knocked back, hard. "I want my gun back," he added.

"This thing isn't designed to hold prisoners, we should be able to get out the door." The entire vehicle was on an angle and Bill used the benches as a handhold to start climbing up the floor. "I hope we're not the only folks left alive out here. That roadblock had at least two other vehicles. I'd like to know where they are." He scrambled up towards the door. "There's a latch on both sides, someone want to get the other one?"

The entire vehicle rang hollowly as something hit the side again. Francis put his hands up to his ears. "Let's get out of here before we all go deaf."

Zoey climbed up to the other latch and wrapped her fingers around it with a nod. She was ready to get the hell out of here, zombies or no zombies. Probably zombies though. It was one of those days.

While they worked on the door, Louis cast about for something, _anything_that might be useful as a weapon, but he came up dry.

Once the latches were undone all it took was a solid push to swing the door open, revealing a strip of sky gleaming with stars. Snuffling, growling sounds, by now familiar to all of them were all that broke the silence.

"So much for the convoy," Bill said. He glanced around at them to make sure they were following and hauled himself out the top. A glance at their vehicle revealed that they'd nosedived into a ditch beside the main road leading to the base. A bit further back, a jeep, its lights still on, stood silent. Francis climbed up behind Bill; no one was going to drop down alone.

Louis followed after Francis and helped Zoey out after him, even though she didn't really need his assistance. When he saw an eerily familiar scene around him, abandoned vehicles and the sounds of infected, he felt a chill run up his spine.

"How is it out already?" he asked quietly.

"It's nothing but desert around here," Zoey frowned, putting a hand in front of her eyes to block the headlights, "And it's not like infected run around in herds, you know? Mostly they just amble around. They could still contain it."

She was telling herself that. Louis nodded and seemed to take her idea on board. The alternative was considerably more negative. At least they'd had a lot of practice if things went the way of their simulations

"My guess is it's still spreading in the base," Bill said. "Maybe our friend didn't make it to quarantine," he added darkly. They were perched on the top of the AVP, and as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they could make out a couple of dark shapes, staggering around in the ditch. "Our weapons are likely to be in the jeep," Bill said.

"So we're gonna run for it?" Francis asked.

"Just be careful, we don't know if these two are all that are left. Just because we heard shots earlier don't mean they actually hit somethin'." Bill glanced at them to make sure they were ready, and dropped down off the back of the APV.

Zoey dropped down after Louis, feeling a bit useless without something to fight with. Whacking zombies with a rifle or a pistol was one thing. At least she was armed, and she could shoot them if necessary. This whole hand-to-hand combat thing wasn't her scene.

"Where we gonna go?" Louis wondered quietly, inching forward a little, "Back to Gasoline? Or back to the base?"

What could they really do? They'd tried to help, but they couldn't single-handedly stop an outbreak, could they? He could remember their days of darting from safe spot to safe spot without a word spoken between them, and he didn't really relish the thought of going back to it. The 'no chatter' rule had never sat that well with him.

"Quit chattin' and get movin!" Bill ordered.

Francis dropped down behind him and one of the shapes in the ditch snarled, taking a few staggering, curious steps towards them. Bill started running. Zoey was hot his heels. She had absolutely zero desire to engage in fisticuffs with a zombie. There was a greater probability of her breaking her hand than actually doing damage to anything.

Louis pressed his lips together. Running he could do. That was a lot more productive than yammering on and on and getting Bill on his case.

While they could hear scrambling from the ditch they managed to get some distance between them and the ill-fated APV. Bill tried not to look at the lights on the jeep; it was impossible to see much further. He'd reached the edge of the lit area when a figure clad in an MP's uniform loomed up in front of him making a grab.

Bill ducked and Francis swung his fist at the infected. It connected and the attacker staggered back a few feet. "Jesus fuck!" Francis swore, holding his fist and grimacing.

"Shit!" Louis agreed, skidding to a halt and looking around again for a tool more well suited for bashing zombies. If Francis was hurting himself punching zombies, somehow Louis doubted he was going to fair much better.

"Their guns have to be around here somewhere," Zoey insisted from behind them, crouching slightly and squinting at the road. Hell, maybe one of the infected still had a sidearm on it still. How hard could it be to wrestle it away?

"Are guns even gonna work?" Francis asked, flexing his fingers and trying to stay a step ahead of the infected. It had recovered and hurled itself at him. He'd sidestepped, not keen on taking another swing.

"Eventually," Bill said, approaching the jeep but stopping when he heard growling coming from inside.

"Pistol whipping is better than punching," Zoey said. Oh great, there was one in the car. She looked at the others and raised her eyebrows at Louis's stance. He looked like he was ready to pounce. There was no way, though, what the hell did he think he was going to do?

The infected, getting increasingly wound up from its near-misses, screeched and hurled itself at Francis again. Louis intercepted it, head down, digging his shoulder into its waist, and both of them hit the pavement.

"Get its gun, get its gun!" he exclaimed. Zoey would have laughed at his rather high-pitched demands but she was too busy darting over to obey, flinching away as the thing clawed wildly in an attempt to right itself. It caught her on the temple and she smacked it away irritably before she finally yanked the pistol free, falling back on her behind while the infected started to snap at Louis.

He flung himself back and away, copping long scratches along his arms for good measure.

Zoey flicked the safety off and hesitated. The infected's face was completely covered in its helmet. She started to scoot back a little, eyes flicking around for a place to shoot, but hell if she could tell what was armored and what wasn't. Turning the pistol around in her hand she settled for smacking its claws away and getting to her feet.

"Next time tackle them hard enough to fling their helmets off, Louis," she said shortly, brow creased in annoyance. Stupid zombies.

"Those helmets aren't gonna take more than a couple of direct hits," Bill said, still watching the infected in the jeep.

"Incoming!" Francis warned, as the infected from the APV began to catch up.

"Zoey?" Louis asked impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah!" she frowned, taking aim and firing at the infected they'd mugged. It took a few shots, but eventually she got through, the creature pitching forward with a squall. There definitely weren't enough bullets in one clip to manage so many other zombies and she turned her attention to the one in the jeep.

"Nice work," Bill said approvingly, circling around towards the back of the jeep - it was unlikely that all their gear would be in the cabin, after all. The infected inside the jeep had fixated on Bill, and as he moved, it tried to scramble after him. Zoey considered pulling the door open, shooting it while it was distracted, but it was too awkward. Instead she followed him around and took aim, ready to pop the zombie as soon as Bill opened the door. This way, at least, she could fire directly at its head.

As Francis extended his hand to help Louis up, he grinned, "You take the one on the left, I take the one on the right" If Louis could tackle zombies, he certainly could. "Come on," he beckoned them.

"Dunno what we're gonna do to em," Louis admitted, taking the hand up and rolling his shoulder. He had played a little football with the guys now and then, but he'd never been that fond of full contact sports. Even so, he braced himself and charged to meet the infected on the left, taking it down the same as he had the other. This one was on the feisty side, however, screeching and biting at him, and he found himself wrestling with it just to avoid getting his face gnawed off.

"Someone got a gun yet!" he called out in alarm. This zombie was starting to kick his ass.

Francis had tackled his zombie with so much enthusiasm they'd both skidded on the ground a short way, the biker skinning the underside of his forearms. Knowing better than to punch at the helmet, Francis threw his weight on the creature and tried to break one of its arms. Ineffectually.

"Just one second." The infected in the cabin had turned its attention on Zoey once she'd fired the gun and was slowly shuffling out of the cabin, obviously having a bit of trouble with the bulky armour in the cramped space. Bill took the opportunity to duck around the back. As soon as he saw the other infected leap out at him, he cursed himself for his overconfidence. Why wouldn't there have been more MPs? They'd set up an entire roadblock.

"Aww hell!" he managed to avoid most of the infected's momentum but they both went down in the dust, Bill fighting furiously to keep it off him.

Zoey fired a few more shots at the zombie struggling awkwardly to reach her, snapping her head around in alarm when she heard bodies hit the dirt. Damn it! She hurried around to the back of the jeep and grabbed the back of the infected's body armor and its belt, trying to haul it off of Bill so he could get away from it and hopefully grab something to shoot it with. It was heavier and a lot stronger than her but she heaved anyway. If nothing else, she could throw it off balance enough to make some sort of difference. She didn't think shooting it while it was on the veteran was the wisest of ideas.

"_Guys!_" Louis shouted more urgently, letting out a yell as the infected sank its teeth into his forearm, "Goddammit! _Shit!_"

Maybe pulling off it's helmet to make it easier to shoot had been, in retrospect, a poor idea.

Bill pulled the infected's pistol out of its holder, and the plexiglass plate splintered, then shattered as he put it against its head and pulled the trigger three times. The armoured limbs stopped flailing and it's entire body went slack. With Zoey's help he heaved it off him. He accepted Zoey's hand.

"Heads up!" He said, as the infected in the cabin abandoned it's post and rushed at them. Zoey turned and their pistols spat. Bill emptied his and scrambled up into the jeep.

"Thank Christ," he said, as he uncovered their arsenal.

"Gonna help Louis," she told him crisply, hurrying over to the struggling engineer, "Move!"

Louis struck the infected in the head a few times to dislodge its teeth and fell back, putting up a hand to guard against splatter as Zoey fired at it. Skull unguarded, it slumped over immediately, and Zoey moved to help Francis next. If he needed it. What was he even doing to it?

Francis stood up, flexing his fingers. His knuckles were bloody.

"I hate cops," he said, kicking the discarded helmet as he walked away.

Bill reappeared with a rifle in each hand and he returned them to their respective owners. Francis grinned when he reacquainted himself with his shotgun.

"What's the plan?" he asked.

"We have to make sure these are all there were. We can't risk infected wanderin' the desert. God knows where they'd end up." He jerked his thumb at the jeep, "All aboard, keep your eyes peeled."

Zoey felt whole again with her rifle back in her hands and she rolled her window down once she took her seat, keeping a sharp eye out for any stragglers. Gasoline had seemed fine when they were there, but she was already picturing it crawling with shambling infected, and it wasn't pretty. Even though they'd been through a mock up of that sort of reality, here in the now there would be no safehouses waiting for them, and likely a lot less 'lucky' windfalls as they made their way to... wherever the hell they would be going in a situation like this.

Louis sat up front and started to patch up his arm, muttering irritably. At least these zombies didn't want to eat people, but hell if it didn't sting anyway.

They discovered another jeep a bit further along, complete with its compliment of infected soldiers. Drawn by the engine noise they ran at the survivors and it was easy enough to lean out the window and pick them off.

Louis's phone rang. He pulled the phone out in a hurry, nearly dropping it before finally putting it to his ear, "Hello?"

"Slater here," came the familiar voice. "Thanks to a friend on the inside, I've gotten my eyes and ears back ahead of schedule. He's in quarantine currently, I'll let you know if I have any more information."

"Man, it ain't so good out here," Louis said, frowning out the window, "They put a roadblock up outside of Gasoline, and we got picked up by the military. They got infected somehow, though."

"Is that Slater?" Zoey queried. Louis waved a hand to confirm her question, a bit prickly, and put a finger in his ear. Zoey made a face and returned to scouting for infected.

"I see. How many did you ...kill? I've got a roster of all the MPs who were out at the roadblock, and all but ten have returned safely enough. You might have contained this particular outbreak."

"Maybe a little under a dozen," Louis said, frowning a bit at how casually he could rattle off a number like that, "Two jeeps and an APV worth. Haven't seen anything else yet. How the hell did it get out so damn fast? We gotta stop this."

"They haven't totally contained it within the base. Don't worry, I have that under control now. But the seal wasn't watertight. I've been using DELPHI to work out just where the leaks occurred. Uh, look, you've done more than enough, and I'd hate to ask this of you, but all I can do is track the spread. What we need is immunes on the ground, to contain it." He fell silent.

"Of course we're gonna help," Louis said, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, "You think I wanna go back to spending the night on a concrete floor, wondering who the horde is tearing apart while I'm safe? Screw that. I wouldn't wish that shit on my worst enemy. You tell us where the infected are, we'll go contain them."

Zoey didn't know exactly what they were talking about, but she was pretty sure she agreed with Louis. She couldn't really go on a cross country road trip, after all, if there wasn't a country left to road trip through.

"Just what the hell are you signing us up for?" Francis asked, eying Louis dubiously. Bill had a fairly good idea, and he remained quiet.

"Your favourite, Francis, shooting zombies," Louis told the biker dryly before he turned his attention back to the phone.

"Four days ago a group of soldiers left for some R&R. They were going to a small town to do some hunting and fishing. They're not awol yet, but local news feeds are reporting a spate of violent attacks in the last two days. People have been hospitalized. I can email you the details. Once you get back to Gasoline, I recommend booking a flight."

* * *

That's it, folks. The end. To those who stuck with us, thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the ride. We always planned for this story to have a very open ending; we wanted nothing more for our survivors than for them to ride off into the sunset with a lot of guns and big plans to kill zombies and save the world. Lurking Grue and I don't see much of each other any more, and I didn't feel right doing a lot of heavy editing solo - so any mistakes in the last handful of chapters are mine alone.


End file.
